Primer

“While blockchain’s best-known, most used and highest-impact application is Bitcoin, the potential impact of the technology is much greater and wider than virtual currencies. Indeed, since other applications can ‘piggyback’ the Bitcoin blockchain, the biggest impacts of Bitcoin may be found outside the currency domain.”

Philip Boucher, Susana Nascimento, and Mihalis Kritikos

European Parliamentary Research Service

“Blockchain technology could simplify the management of trusted information, making it easier for government agencies to access and use critical public-sector data while maintaining the security of this information.”

Steve Cheng, Matthias Daub, Axel Domeyer, and Martin Lundqvist

McKinsey & Company

“The blockchain could offer people access to alternative currencies, global markets, automated and trustless transactions systems, self-enforcing smart contracts, smart property and cryptographically activated assets, and innovative models of governance based on transparency and corruption-free voting. Combined, these elements could be used to promote individual freedoms and user autonomy. Regardless of nationality, people could be granted equal access to basic digital institutions and infrastructure such as decentralized laws, markets, judiciaries, and payment systems, which can be customized to each country’s, group’s, and individual’s needs.”

Aaron Wright and Primavera De Filippi

Authors, Blockchain and the Law: The Rule of Code

“…[W]hat if there were not only an Internet of information, but an Internet of value. Some kind of vast, global, distributed ledger running on millions of computers and available to everybody, and where every kind of asset from money to music could be stored, moved, transacted, exchanged, and managed, all without powerful intermediaries.”

Don Tapscott

Author, Blockchain Revolution

“Blockchain technology will not solve all government problems, but it can help curb corruption and instill trust in government.”

Carlos Santiso

Head of Innovation for Citizen Services Division at Inter-American Development Bank

“The blockchain is a disruptive technology with a tremendous transformative potential for our societies. Risks and benefits related to its possible applications, however, must be carefully weighted, avoiding utopian expectations, as well as the pitfalls of technocratic reasoning and determinism.”

Marcella Atzori, Ph.D.

UCL Center for Blockchain Technologies

“…blockchain is one of the most overhyped technologies ever….Ultimately, blockchain’s uses will be limited to specific, well-defined, and complex applications that require transparency and tamper-resistance more than they require speed – for example, communication with self-driving cars or drones. As for most of the coins, they are little different from railway stocks in the 1840s, which went bust when that bubble – like most bubbles – burst.”

Nouriel Roubini

New York University Stern School of Business

“Blockchain is not going to solve all your problems for you,….You’re a hammer-thrower just looking for nails.” [When you have technology in search of a use] “you end up with crap that we see out there in the enterprise today.”

Jimmy Song

Blockchain Capital