South Africa on the blockchain

It's very refreshing to see that emerging economies, in this case SA, have their ears on the ground as far as blockchain is concerned. After all, I think you would agree these economies are the ones who need blockchain technology more than any other developed nation.

I have been away from Steemit and blogging for a while now - I had a lot on my plate. I recently made my debut in corporate so that comes with great responsibility and discovery. But I am happy I have always found the time to do more research on blockchain and cryptoassets. The rabbit hole is just too deep!

I have, recently, discovered a paper "The Advent of Cryptobanking" by Farzam Ehsani blockchain lead at Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) and chair of the SAFBC. RMB is a member of the South African Financial Blockchain Consortium (SAFBC) - but more on that later.

What's particularly interesting, other than the paper itself, is why the fuck am I learning about it now? This paper introduces the concept of cryptobanking which will pave the way for the crypto instrument. For now, all you should know is that a crypto instrument will be the most evolved form of money to date. The paper gives background on the evolution of money and unpacks how crypto banking could be implemented.

According to the paper this is what the evolution of money looks like:

1. Physical Bearer Instrument (animal hides, shells , salt etc.)
2. Physical Registered Instrument (any monetary representative registered by the then central authority as belonging to a particularly person)
3. Digital Registered Instrument (digital money balance, government bond, etc.)
   and now,
4. Crypto Instrument (a hybrid of bearer and registered instrument

Being the most frictionless form of money it only makes sense that we make the shift. This, crypto banking, should cut transaction costs from the bank's side and as well as on the customer's side, make financial remittances faster and make for greater transparency between the commercial banks and the reserve bank.

This is just how the financial sector is going about it. There is a myriad of work and research dedicated into other industries as well, farming, supply chain management, content sharing, social media, health care etc. you name it!

Although distributed ledger technologies have been around for years, there is a very high probability that blockchain wouldn't have surfaced if it weren't for bitcoin. And we shouldn't, ever, ever downplay the role that the advent of bitcoin has played (FYI, I'm still HODLing). That's why I have a burning hatred for sensational headlines and YouTube video captions that start something like "Forget about bitcoin, blockchain..." I know it's just sensationalism but let us not get carried away. Bitcoin is the most successful blockchain application to date. Even that would be beside the point.

To view all the members of SAFBC click: http://www.safbc.co.za/members/ (there are multitudes of listed educational content on the website as well - use it).