Blockchain - The Paradigm Shift
This article is a snapshot of my views on blockchain. It is mainly here to share my opinion on why I believe in DLT and have been personally educating myself for over 2 years. A lot of content right now is filled with potentials of instant gratification and profit which can sometimes detract from the great strides going on in the space. This is also for those who are wondering about a lot of the blockchain content I have been sharing over the past year and an area that is taking up more of my day to day professionally. This is an approximate 10 minute read. Would be great to hear if anyone agrees or disagrees with my views on where we're heading.
There are a few observations that stand true to what we experience everyday. Let’s not recite the clichés but one observation which is relevant to this article is as follows. At the end of the day we all go about life making sense of the world around us. As individuals and as a society this is what we do — we join the dots on data, information and events and fill the gaps with assumptions as to why and how things take shape. We build upon assumptions and create belief systems on this based on somewhat verified assumptions and so on. Daily decisions and history is made on this principle. Up until now we have relied on one another and institutions to verify the source and validity of information. The way information and data is stored however is changing and will see a paradigm shift in how information is shared and transferred. This this will ultimately affect the distribution of power.
This shift will also in turn affect the way things of value are transacted and ways which we ‘spend’ our assets/money. It needs to be said that this paradigm shift hinges on a few factors, which I will mention later. The shift is being led by the present support and increased adoption of cryptocurrencies, blockchains (private and public) and distributed ledger technologies ("DLT") more generally. For those who may not have much personal interest or knowledge in these technologies then I’d encourage that you read the next paragraph, if you feel you’re familiar with the concept of these technologies you are forgiven for skipping the next paragraph!
New Technologies
Essentially what distributed ledger technologies offer are ways of recording transactions and items on a decentralised electronic database which typically is not hosted by a single entity and every user can rely on, transact on and also host/service. Put very basically, the decentralised database is hosted over a large network and in some cases participants serve and uphold the database by using computer hardware to solve computational problems and process transactions on the network for everyone else. This differs from centralised databases which we all rely on today. Centralised databases are typically centrally owned or controlled by a central entity. There are multiple benefits of using distributed ledger technologies which include the near impossible ability for a single person to change data on the decentralised ledger. This reduces the possibility of fraudulent transactions (depending on how you would define fraudulent), the cost of a central intermediary and the arbritary decision making power of such a central authority inherent of existing centralised databases. Technically the concept of DLTs is not new, but the adoption of the concept and developments of the technology keeps moving at an unprecedented pace.
Existing Paradigms
Firstly to consider financial systems and currencies — these centralised databases are owned and/or controlled by nation states, banks and other intermediaries such as card issuers and exchanges.
Secondly to consider records of value these exist in the form of Company registries, Property (land) registries, charterparties of vessels, global logistics systems and any other form of centralised database which records data of value — in the form of big data. This data is sometimes held on single servers or distributed to a number of parties using computer application software (referred to Application Programming Interfaces “API”) that give direct pipelines over the internet to users of the data directly. However, the users of this data of course depend on the person providing the pipeline to provide them with valid, up to date and un-manipulated data.
Applying New Technology to Existing Paradigms
The new DLTs applied to financial systems offer a similar ability to record transactions of value but over a network of users without the need for one single central entity to approve the transactions. This therefore means that transactions can occur without the need for substantial fees from the central entity for processing the transaction being incurred. Using DLTs this also almost guarantees that the data, database or variables of the database are not going to change. At the moment nation states and financial institutions are able to change the value of data and to use an example of this in our financial systems, this has been known to be done through increasing or limiting a monetary supply and rejecting or accepting transactions or accounts based on arbritrary discretion or regulatory discretion. This affects the value of ones capital, particularly when such national issued currencies are not backed by anything else.
If applied to records of value — the centralised databases are company registries, property registries, charterparties over vessels and global logistics systems. This means that you can transfer the record of ownership over property/cargo on a decentralised ledger which is not administered by a central authority but instead over an agreed system of process and network. This means that fees for processing on the traditional register can be eradicated or vastly reduced; retain a full record of ownership history; and reduce and potentially fully eradicate fraudulent and duplicate transactions (depending on how you would define such transactions in an existing paradigm).
How is this a potential paradigm shift?
Under existing centralised systems individuals’ ability to transact assets and money is limited by geography, permissions from regulators, reliance on centralised agents and security vulnerabilities. Transferring assets over distributed ledgers does not strictly speaking rely on geography, regulatory approval or centralised agents approving transactions. All that is needed is access to the protocol and, in an ideal world, good governance and practices by its users.
In financing of businesses we are already seeing a huge shift to projects and entities being able to raise capital in the form of token generating events, also referred to as ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) and ITOs (Initial Token Offering). Businesses are being able to raise funds by selling utility and/or security tokens in their project. This means that at any point in a business’/project's existence, if the business depends on utilising a distributed ledger anyone can purchase tokens that allow the token holder to use the decentralised network for their own purposes.
To give an example, people and businesses are developing blockchain applications to be able to use medical services, energy, wifi, online file storage and transaction authorization worldwide by using the tokens for their system. You can only use the distributed ledger if you acquire these utility tokens.
To put this in a very basic example which I typically use, it is kind of like when you have to exchange money for a car wash token. You can’t use that token in any normal shop as money but you can use it as that carwash to either wash a car, hoover it, wax it or dry it. You could also technically go away and sell on that token to someone else who might want that particular car wash token. If there are a limited amount of tokens and that car wash is particularly popular then you could sell that token for more than you purchased it for. The difference here is that we’re talking about digital tokens being distributed for a business on a blockchain / decentralized ledger.
Businesses are also being built whereby in addition to being able to utilise a distributed ledger with a utility token, that token also holds ownership in the network. These are frequently referred to as a security tokens as the purchaser typically expects to gain from the common enterprise. This can be akin to owning a very small portion of a company at times. In some instances a security token may also even have voting rights in the way that the rest of the network conducts itself, i.e. holders of a security token may be able to decide whether or not to approve certain types of transactions or technical developments on the network (such as, for example, the way transactions may be processed).
Whilst technical this is a pretty revolutionary way in how businesses can funded. This allows people to invest in businesses or pay for utilising a service in advance of them needing it which essentially allows the consumer market to dictate whether a business is deserving of capital — as opposed to credit institutions being able to dictate whether there is a consumer demand.
This is effectively the market driving liquidity and financing through granular consumer agents and not credit institutions. Presently up until now, financing businesses is and has for a long time been the other way around.
Historically businesses funded their growth through reinvestment of profits, then came in the institutions and credit lending, then came in venture capitalism, then came in crowdfunding and today we have token generating events (ICOs/ITOs).
Token generating events can in future allow needed services and technologies to come and go based on almost real-time market demand. Whilst at present this isn’t quite in effect — this is where I see the direction of blockchain businesses heading. In the future I also do not see a majority of ICOs happening before a proof of concept (MVP) has been tabled, which is currently the case. I see tokens needing to be generated for an existing platform in future ICOs. Equally when businesses/projects fail they will likely go quicker than existing businesses. It may be a lot harder for state actors or insolvency practitioners step in to wind down the project - at least until there are ways of automating token insurance for projects based on the blockchain.
Presently unprecedented amounts of funds are being generated on simply a promise to deliver a white-paper which is akin to a fund prospectus. The reason for these large amounts going in before a utility has even been created is because at present unsophisticated and sophisticated investors are getting in early which incentivises a front loaded timeline of finance. However, in the future as good practices set in, prudent investors are likely to balance first mover approach against proof of ability, potential insider market trading regulations and less on speculation. To those of you who may not be aware of the extent of the current ICO market, there are businesses being able to raise as much as $250m US in 10 days before the business has even created the product it is promising to build. So far in the past year or so $2billion US has been raised worldwide through this form of fund raising. Let that sink in. Some of these raising
Whilst I see this form of business financing growing in use, volume size and total amounts raised — which is empowering for businesses, consumers and investors alike — I see these benefits as just a small part of the wider opportunities of individual enablement DLTs will bring in the future. The present financial value of bitcoin and ICOs is not necessarily correlated to the development of the underlying technology.
DLTs will also enable individuals to access digital services of transferring value without the need for holding a bank account. Cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin allow two people based in different parts of the world to transfer a digital currency, which has a real market value, without the need for an intermediary. This is incredibly enabling for individuals who do not hold bank accounts — which is estimated to be roughly 50% of the world’s population. This is particularly significant when a majority of this 50% exists in countries such as Africa where population growth is expected to boom. In fact it has been estimated by 2022 Africa’s population as a continent will be larger than that of India and China respectively. This is enabling for individuals and a huge potential loss of market share for banks in these regions.
There are a number of other examples but I can imagine you get the idea — you are being able to offer the exchange of information, with increasingly automated and somewhat technologically agnostic applications which can all interact at increasingly low costs with little to no risk of this data ever being altered once it has been registered on the blockchain / ledger. Think Interpol, think company registries, property registries, medical records, energy consumption, internet consumption, food and drink consumption, animal tracking, farming, diamond registries, energy harnessed, work done etc.
Why ‘might’ there be a paradigm shift? What could hold it back?
The reason why I view that we may be in a paradigm shift is mainly twofold. Firstly there are the political problems of legitimising the paradigm and secondly there are technological problems.
In respect of the first point there have been a number of political hurdles to bring distributed ledger technologies into mainstream adoption. Bitcoin for example has seen its past jaded by criminal transactions and online black-market places such as the Silk Road which facilitated black market products (drugs, weapons, fraudulent documents) and services with payment of Bitcoin. Governments have also looked to minimise such illicit uses of the technologies by over-regulating cryptocurrencies and blockchain businesses — see for example New York’s Bit Licence regulation. More recently Governments around the globe have temporarily banned the use of Bitcoin, the use of various cryptocurrencies as well as investments in ICO tokens. This has most recently been seen in China’s outright ban on ICO trading, holding of tokens as being deemed securities and shutting down bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchanges in China.
Whilst these are all Governmental and institutional interventions — attempts to regulate the technologies impedes mainstream adoption but some may argue forces the technologies to become less incumbent and restricted by governance. Bad for lawyers but good for scaling and adoption. As a result, such political hurdles may actually go on to increase the technological developments of these technologies, which brings me to the second most important hurdle to the adoption and legitimisation of distributed ledger technologies.
The second most important hurdles is in respect of the technological capabilities of distributed ledger technologies. At present, Bitcoin which is the most popular cryptocurrency which sees 254,599 daily transactions and roughly 11.48 million ‘wallets’ (i.e. accounts which hold the bitcoins) can only process roughly 3–7 transactions per second. Ethereum, another public blockchain processes approximately 20 transactions per second. Paypal, a known digital payments processor can process around 190 transactions per second average and Visa can process approximately 1,660 transactions per second. Whilst issues addressing scalability and transaction processing are being considered for existing blockchains, when compared to existing transaction processors they are considerably slower. However, transactions per second are not the sole and best metric to value the benefit of the blockchain. In a way comparing some blockchain speeds to those of payment processers is apples and oranges. There are also elements of tiered architectures, smart contracts, decentralised autonomous organisations and interoperability between different blockchains which are benefits which other systems do not offer at present. Ultimately among the main technical problems at the moment is scaling and dealing with volume.
To take a step back from all of the technical chatter — just remember the internet and how slow it used to be in 1998 and how limited uses were. Look at the speed of your connection now and the things you are doing differently on it.
The Horizon
To bring this back where I started — at the end of the day we are just making sense of the world around us. Saying when the teetering point of the shift will occur is difficult to say, but the importance is the long term impact. In making sense of the everyday events around us we need to be self-aware and astute to potential changes on the horizon and how this may affect our day to day living and business. Whilst many would dismiss this type of article as futurist and idealist, which I would agree with in part, I would still say to not rule out the possibility of the change and to be prepared for how the change may affect you personally and in your business. My view is that it is a matter of when, not if the paradigm shift will happen.
Even more significant shifts have occurred in living memory: traditional industrial economies were radically transformed through the last wave of innovation in technology and globalization. Innovations such as Bloomberg’s trading terminals brought trading to be digital and hyper real-time, revolutionising asset trading, changing concepts of financial products and bringing new levels of liquidity to markets; China reversed its economic model creating a new form of hybrid capitalism bringing more than a half a billion people out of poverty; the European Union was created divulging the power of nation states in many respects; the world wide web has come online enabling us to communicate with whoever whenever we want and also consume information at unprecedented levels for mankind; and as a very irrelevant day to day example of another shift — our wallets are getting thinner as we depend on hard cash less and less and rely on digital representations of value more and more.
At the end of the day I’m just understanding events as I see them based on what is around me. Deloitte has recently predicted that 10% of global GDP will be built upon blockchain technologies by 2025. I think if you zoom in on this you would probably find that this is a conservative estimation of presently digital and western economies. I would also admit that anyone thinking that this whole blockchain movement Is advocating an autonomous future — this isn’t the case. Our day to day lives may not appear to be physically changing. What will change will be the background cogs and work processes that we do not see and the effect of this is that it will ultimately make our daily lives and business that little bit easier once in play but much more measured and instantaneous.
For those of you who don't know me - I'm passionate about helping ambitious projects heading for growth. I've written this post in a personal capacity. Day to day I advise tech businesses and SMEs with set-up and regulatory issues.
For the past 2 years I have contributed to Gibraltar's startup ecosystem by organising the Gibraltar Startup Community and pressing policy issues on technology and innovation. Most recently I am dealing regularly with enquiries in the DLT and ICO space, where I also regularly consult and liaise with local regulators and banks in providing solutions.
Prior to practising in Gibraltar I was an in-house advisor at a VC backed fintech company in London.