CCEG SOCIAL VALUE & INTANGIBLES REVIEW
INTERVIEW
BLOCKCHAIN REVOLUTION A Platform for Truth and Trust
by Raisa Ambros, Editor CCEG Social Value & Intangibles Review
Interview with Don & Alex Tapscott
Don Tapscott, CEO of The Tapscott Group, is one of the world’s leading authorities on the impact of technology on business and society. He has authored 16 books including Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything which has been translated into over 25 languages. His most recent book (co-authored with his son Alex), Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin is Changing Money, Business, and the World has been a bestseller in Canada since its launch and has been featured in nearly every major news publication in the world. Alex Tapscott is a globally recognized thought-leader, speaker and writer focused on the impact of emerging technologies on business, society and government. Alex is the co-author (with Don Tapscott) of the critically acclaimed #1 Globe and Mail Non-fiction best-seller, Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin is Changing Money, Business, and the World. Alex is also the founder and CEO of Northwest Passage Ventures, a social innovator. Alex currently sits on Advisory Board to Elections Canada, the independent, nonpartisan agency responsible for conducting federal elections and referendums, and is a founding Member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Futures Council on Blockchain. Q. Your book Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin is Changing Money, Business, and the World is one of the most appreciated in the digital currency field. How exactly will blockchain fundamentally transform the internet and business in the next 25 years? A. Profoundly. In fact, Blockchain technology represents nothing short of the second generation of the internet. For 40 years we’ve had the internet of information, which has transformed the way we communicate and how we access information, but it has not fundamentally transformed how we do commerce in the economy. This is due to the simple reason that to transact, start a company, or do business online we still rely heavily on middlemen like banks, social media companies, or governments to create trust. We also rely on these intermediaries to perform basic business logic - clearing, settling, contracting and record keeping. With blockchain the interenet is entering a second era - from an internet of information to an internet of value - enabling individuals, companies, smart devices, and AI to do business and build value peer to peer. To be certain, this will transform many industries such as financial services, healthcare, manufacturing and others, but
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more importantly it will allow us to rethink and reimagine radical new business models and new ways or organizing capability in the economy.
Q. You said blockchain technology is the biggest innovation in computer science, and is essential to unlocking the potential of the Internet of Things. What are the capabilities of this innovation and the transition to the Internet of Value? A. If prognosticators are correct, in the near future there will be hundreds of billions if not trillions of internet-enabled things and devices, doing everything from monitoring our health, to driving us around, to managing our affairs and generating our electricity. These devices will need a way to communicate value – both monetary value and sensitive data requiring security – securely, privately and peer to peer. In short, the Internet of everything needs a ledger of everything. Consider energy production. If a lightbulb in your house meters electricticty from your neighbour’s solar panel, bidding daily in a distributed energy market, that transaction simply cannot clear and settle efficiently on a traditional payment network – you need a blockchain.
February 2017