This week one of our 10XTS team members, Brian Thomas, attended the “Get Smart on Blockchain” event in Washington D.C.. The event was organized by the United States Chamber of Commerce. 10XTS maintains close relationships with the U.S. Chamber, and particularly their C_TEC group. C_TEC has a directive to focus on emerging technologies, and of course, blockchain is just that.
Blockchain 101 is the best way to describe the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s “Get Smart on Blockchain” event. Although there were some heavy hitters at the conference including representatives from Accenture, Wal-Mart, and Blockchain.com, the topics were high level and broad sweeping.
However, the event was only 4 hours long and hosted 19 speakers. With an audience ranging from blockchain virgins to those who’d been in the space since the inception of Bitcoin, it was a great first event to get decision makers in the same room.
The buzz is still the same as it has been among the in-the-know crypto crowd: regulation is as clear as mud; the technology works and will speed up our economy (eventually); no one agrees on anything; negative blockchain press is perceived as a joke.
Regulation
The days of money for free with ICOs is over. Over 900 companies were subpoenaed by the SEC in 2017 for possibly illegal capital raises. Since then, the SEC has declared Ethereum tokens as “not securities”, in arguably the biggest announcement of 2018 by the commission.
This being the case, how tokens ARE classified as is still complex and undetermined. The rest of the world is looking toward the SEC while the SEC is waiting on legislation and the legislators are trying to figure out what the hell is going on with each other and the political climate.
All anyone knows for sure is that you’d better follow every rule and guideline put forth by the SEC in 1946. Sorry democratized business enthusiasts, it will still cost money to raise money. The rest of the world is watching as U.S. regulators play the games of politics and policy.
It Works
Walmart has successfully traced sliced mangos back to their origin point via blockchain in 2 seconds. This is down from the 6 days and 18 hours it previously took. The tech works. It’s the adoption that’s difficult. Remember, the internet was launched in 1994. But it wasn’t until 2003 until the first major social networks (LinkedIn and Myspace) were launched, almost a decade later.
It wasn’t until the proliferation of the smart phone, with Apple’s release of the iPhone in April 2007, coincidentally the same year that Facebook launched, that the internet became an integral part of our social lives, quickly followed by advertisers and business. Adoption is slow. It generally takes 15-20 years to be adopted.
We will see if this is also true with blockchain and the economy; has the internet accelerated our adoption rate? We are at the same 9 year mark now as LinkedIn and the iTunes store were opened for business on the internet. In 3 years we should see mass adoption by the institutions who will save the most money. In 10, by the world.
No matter what Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and MasterCard claim, they are working on their own technology in preparation for the major adoption of blockchain.
Clueless
No one can tell the future, but everyone has an opinion on it. Most decisions will be made in the next coming year by lawmakers and SEC decisions. Although the new wave of platforms on Blockchain 3.0 are attempting to adhere to regulations currently enforced by the SEC, nothing has been set in stone and everyone is arguing.
Negative Press
Blockchain has been given a lot of flack, especially after the December hike and subsequent January crash of the world’s cryptocurrency market.
Yes, it was a bubble.
Yes, it popped and exploded negative press all over the web about crypto fraud, piracy, and black-market dealings. This is no different than the dot com bubble.
Those companies that are structurally sound and follow regulations have a great chance of not only surviving, but thriving. Blockchain is here to stay. It will do to world-wide transactions what the internet did to world-wide communication.
This revolution will not be televised, not because of any anarcho-crypto capitalist movement, but that blockchain will provide a seamless integration into current financial systems which the end customer should only notice as a step-up in customer service and cheaper transactions.
The internet made our communication easier and faster. The blockchain will be the pathway to the new economy.