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Financial Cryptography: Corda Day - a new force

Forum friend Ian Grigg, who I always take very seriously indeed on any such topic, wrote about Corda on his blog and concluded with a powerful statement.

Bitcoin told the users it wanted an unstoppable currency - sure, works for a small group but not for the mass market. Ethereum told their users they need an unstoppable machine - which worked how spectacularly with the DAO? Not. What. We. Wanted.

Corda is the only game in town because it's the only one that asked the users. It's that simple.

From Financial Cryptography: Corda Day - a new force

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It seems to me, however, what Ian is pointing to as the greatest strength of their approach is also the greatest weakness. A staple feature of unimaginative management consultants presentations about innovation is some variation on the statement by Henry Ford that if you had asked users what they wanted, they would have asked for faster horses coupled with some variation on the statement by Steve jobs that it was pointless asking users what they wanted, you just have to show them. In the context of the disruptive innovation analysis that we have all is a fair criticism of our 3 to say that they have been caught between two stools. On the one hand, their members want them to solve for problems that they already have in a context that they understand. Hence they want quarter to, essentially, emulate the kind of database solution that they are familiar with, potentially with some cost savings and some improved performance. But the more I think about it, and I think about it a lot, my experiences working with senior management teams in a variety of industries to help them to develop their strategies towards the general class a shares latest technologies and the specific technology of the block chain is that this new technology will have an impact not by making marginal improvements to the way in which markets function at present but by stimulating the creation of, in these new kinds of markets, the control transparency of transactions will have the most impact. This is why keep going on and on about ambient accountability.

 

I think am coming round to the point of view that block chain is a ragtag, not a thin tech.

 

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