Over the past few months I have attended a lot of events where blockchain and distributed ledger technology has been discussed. Some have been excellent and some, well let's just say, that some have adopted a a 'smoke and mirrors' approach.
Having spent a lot of my life being a regulator and investigator, I always approach what I hear from self appointed experts with a healthy bit of skepticism.
I am surprised when panel experts confuse blockchain with DLT (they are not the same) and then seek to bamboozle the audience with reasons why the chain will soon disrupt their businesses and lives. Yet whenever you seek to have some of these folk (and there are many good and informed experts out there) answer simple questions, they often gloss over the topic and seek to remind you that it is too complex to explain from the podium.
Everything in life can be explained in terms of A, B and C. If someone cannot describe for you an idea, business or technology on an A4 piece of paper or a powerpoint slide with a diagram, chances are they don't have a decent grasp of the subject matter.
Before you start reading other people's views and analysis, why not start by empowering yourself with the knowledge contained in the very short (9 pages) paper titled "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" by the unidentified Satoshi Nakamoto. At 9 pages, it is a fraction of the size of a lot of publications that have since followed.
Download it and search the word 'block' (it appears 67 times in the 9 pages). Once you've read the original document, everything else is someone else's view (some valid and some perhaps not so valid). By reading the foundation document and getting to grips with it, you may even find that you are more knowledgeable than many of the so called blockchain experts. Have some fun - quote a line or two from the paper at the expert and see how he/she reacts.
Once you have read through the paper, you can start to look around at independent sources of information on the subject, such as wikipedia's excellent and free information and other resources.
Having spent a lot of my life being a regulator and investigator, I always approach what I hear from self appointed experts with a healthy bit of skepticism.
I am surprised when panel experts confuse blockchain with DLT (they are not the same) and then seek to bamboozle the audience with reasons why the chain will soon disrupt their businesses and lives. Yet whenever you seek to have some of these folk (and there are many good and informed experts out there) answer simple questions, they often gloss over the topic and seek to remind you that it is too complex to explain from the podium.
Everything in life can be explained in terms of A, B and C. If someone cannot describe for you an idea, business or technology on an A4 piece of paper or a powerpoint slide with a diagram, chances are they don't have a decent grasp of the subject matter.
Before you start reading other people's views and analysis, why not start by empowering yourself with the knowledge contained in the very short (9 pages) paper titled "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" by the unidentified Satoshi Nakamoto. At 9 pages, it is a fraction of the size of a lot of publications that have since followed.
Download it and search the word 'block' (it appears 67 times in the 9 pages). Once you've read the original document, everything else is someone else's view (some valid and some perhaps not so valid). By reading the foundation document and getting to grips with it, you may even find that you are more knowledgeable than many of the so called blockchain experts. Have some fun - quote a line or two from the paper at the expert and see how he/she reacts.
Once you have read through the paper, you can start to look around at independent sources of information on the subject, such as wikipedia's excellent and free information and other resources.