AlexTapscott

Having a distributed ledger that's global and open enables anyone, anywhere in the world to have a record of who owns what, who owes what to whom, etc. A record of the truth. Paper records and even many digital databases today exist within silos of corporations, governments etc and can be altered by any one person or persons. Consider land title registries- 5.5 billion people in the world have a flakey title to their land, because even if they own a piece of paper that says the own property, a government server or another person might have a competing claim that says something different. A corrupt government official could change his paper records and choose not to enforce your claim. With a blockchain based land registry, like the one Bitfury is building in Georgia, that would be impossible.

Hi! We think is a big innovation and not just an evolution, because for the first time, we have a truly native digital medium for moving, storing and managing value without the need for a powerful intermediary like a bank, government or technology company. This is a shift in paradigms (a term Don can use because he wrote the book Paradigm Shift) from an internet of information to an internet of value.

A lot of corporations have naturally gravitated towards the private route, especially in financial services. They like the many benefits of blockchain - speed, efficiency, cost, etc - but bristle at the idea of opening their businesses to a distributed network of millions of participants, many of whom would be unknown to them. So you get R3CEV and other consortiums popping up, and Ripple which was supposed to banker friendly.

Our personal view is that blockchains based on Satoshi's original white paper, which are distributed and open and invite experimentation and invention, will prevail in nearly all use cases. Even more recently, you're seeing hybrid versions, like IBM's hyperledger or Chain inc's Chain OS, which try to blend private and public.

Tough call! We had a family dog named Arnold who was a 135 pound Bernese Mountain Dog who was both noble and very chill. but I just got a miniature Dachshund puppy named Hugo who is the cutest thing on the planet and he is also pretty cool. Call it a draw?

Sure, in the book we actually identify 7 big transformations (the ways blockchain will change the world), and financial services is only the first. We think this technology will also 1. change the deep architecture of the firm 2. enable new business models 3. animate the world of smart devices "the internet of everything needs a ledger of everything" 4. Solve the prosperity paradox 5. ensure creators of content get fairly compensated 6. Make government more transparent, legitimate and efficient.