English | EN Yo CIO! Do you understand the blockchain?
Apr 8, 2015
Last week I had a dinner with a CIO and I asked him about blockchain. “What about it?” he said. I asked what he knew about the blockchain, and he replied “nothing”. It gave me the opportunity to do an 8-minute pitch. During these 8 minutes he said nothing, which is quite remarkable if you would know this person. After these 8 minutes he looked at me and said “So you’re basically saying that this is a new way of getting rid of all the waste in the system?” And he was quite right of course, although we didn’t frame it in this way yet. And then I asked “How would you start with this in your company?” Since we’re working on a third report on the blockchain, and we would like to present you with some advice, this question is quite relevant for us. And then he replied, “We will do nothing, unless we understand what it is”. And although that sounded reasonable, it made me think what he actually could do to get a better understanding.
This CIO is very much into CMM levels. So I was thinking we might present ideas how to get a better understanding of the blockchain in a CMM kind of way. Including the more complex stuff, like “Blockchain thinking: the brain as a DAC” from Melanie Swan, but also the “for dummies” articles. These are just 4 starters, but I’m interested in your ideas: what would your advice be for this “blockchain for CIOs” list.
- Easy: Open a bitcoin account
- Watch: “Life on Bitcoin”
An easy way to get into the reality of the crypto-economy is watching “lifeonbitcoin.com“
Can a newly married couple survive when every living necessity can only be purchased with “cryptocurrency”? Married less than two weeks, and fresh off their honeymoon, Austin and Beccy Craig embark on an adventure to find out. Life on Bitcoin is a film documenting their history-making quest.
Another one :Morgan Spurlock, who did a documentary on living on hamburgers (super size me), also did a documentary on living on bitcoins for CNN, but quite hard to find it on the web.
- Advanced: Read “Consensus as a service”
This report assumes that the reader is already familiar with Bitcoin (the blockchain) and bitcoin (the commodity, currency or asset). If you are unfamiliar with these concepts, then some of the vocabulary, concepts and analogies may not make sense. The purpose of this short report is to describe the divergence between ‘permissionless’ cryptocurrency systems (such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Peercoin) and ‘permissioned’ distributed ledger systems (such as Ripple, Hyperledger). LINK.
- Serious: Open a Research Lab like UBS
Swiss banking giant UBS is opening a technology lab in London to explore how blockchain technology can be used in financial services. The lab will bring together technology experts from the bank and the wider fintech community, UBS said. Lab members and invited guests will experiment with how blockchain — the underlying technology behind bitcoin — can be adapted to process a wide range of financial transactions in a more efficient and cost-effective way, the bank said.
About the author
