CFD 479 – The Blockchain Revolution Will Change Your Business

October 4th, 2018

Don Tapscott is the CEO of The Tapscott Group. He was Founder and Chairman of the international think tank New Paradigm before its acquisition. He is currently the fourth most influential management thinker in the world according to Thinkers 50. He is the Chancellor of Trent University and bestselling author of Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World, Wikinomics:

How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, and Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World.

Podcast Highlights

  • Who is Don Tapscott?

According to Blockchainnews.com, Don is the Mr. Fantastic of the blockchain world. Back in the 1970’s, Don was organizing against the war in Vietnam, fighting for civil rights and women’s rights, and has always worked towards creating a better world. He believed technology might be the way to actually build that better world.

Don wrote his first book in 1981 where he argued that computers were going to become a communications tool, where he basically predicted the emergence of the internet well before it came about.

Don wasn’t initially interested in technology but after learning how to program an early computer to calculate some statistics Don expected to take a year to complete, in only 180 seconds, he realized that technology was going to be something special.

  • The Blockchain Revolution

The blockchain is a paradigm shift, much like the early computer and the first version of the internet.

Double spending has been an issue for society forever, which is why we developed a series of intermediaries, but these intermediaries are slow and cumbersome and are vulnerable to hacking.

Blockchain technology is like a global spreadsheet that runs on millions of computers that manages assets and value and facilitates transactions in a secure and trusted way. For the first time, people can do transactions peer to peer without an intermediary.

  • Blockchain Efficiency

Every intermediary adds cost to a transaction, in theory, everything the banks do could be done by software on the blockchain. The smart banks are focusing on creating new value as the middleman.

There is a disruptive danger as well as a creative opportunity in every industry because of the effect of the blockchain.

70% of land titles in the world are not enforceable. What happens when land titles are put onto the blockchain? Not only will it make transactions faster, but it will also make them more secure.

The blockchain is virtually unhackable. No government dictator or warlord would be able to falsify it.

  • Multiple Ledgers

Not everyone will use bitcoin in the future, currencies will become more like cryptocurrencies instead.

There are seven different types of digital assets that can be on the blockchain. This year there has been $12 billion spent on Initial Coin Offerings and it’s only getting bigger. If you’re a small business, you need to understand what these different types of tokens are and how they can grow your business.

Even the disruptors like Uber and AirBNB could be disrupted by the blockchain. Smart businesses will look ahead and figure out how to make the blockchain work for them.

Set up a Google alert for the term ‘blockchain’ and you will be blown away by the amount of info that comes up each day.

Personal use is required for concrete comprehension. Download a digital wallet and spend some bitcoin.

Reference: Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World

  • Don’s Takeaway

Beside buying Blockchain Revolution and watching Don’s TED talk, Google your industry and add blockchain to the search, you will start to see use cases and that’s a good way to get started. Check out blockchainresearchinstitute.org and contact Don, he would be happy to be the partner that helps walk you through the process.

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