Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrencies is Changing the World

by Don Tapscott

Allaire sees financial services as the last holdouts, and perhaps the largest prize, to be fundamentally transformed by technology. “If you look at retail banking, there are three or four things that retail banks do. One is that they provide a place to store value. A second is that they provide some kind of payment utility. Beyond that, they extend credit and provide a place for you to store wealth and generate potential income.”44 His vision: “Within three to five years, a person should be able to download an app, store value digitally in whatever currency they want—dollars, euro, yen, renminbi, as well as digital currency—and be able to make payments instantly or nearly instantly with global interoperability, with a very high level of security and without privacy leakage. Most importantly, it will be free.”45 As the Internet transformed information services, the blockchain will transform financial services, instigating unimagined new categories of capability. According to Allaire, the benefits of blockchain technology—instant settlement, global interoperability, high levels of security, and nearly no-cost transactions—benefit everyone whether you’re a person or a business. And what of his plan to make it all free? Heresy! say the world’s bankers. Surely, Goldman Sachs and the Chinese venture firm IDG did not commit $50 million to create a nonprofit or public benefit company!46 “If we’re successful in building out a global franchise with tens of millions of users and we’r...