Tuesday 21 November 2017

Blockchain: the end of the sociopath CEO and the rise of consensus?

In today’s homepage story we publish the first in atwo-part Q&A with Winding Tree founder andCEO Max Izmaylov. In conversation with him this week, he recommended a fascinating new video from technologist, serial entrepreneur and bitcoin expert Andreas Antonopolous. 

If you watch one video this week, we recommend thisone!



Aside from explaining why today’s hierarchical organisations, which are increasingly corrupted by power and often led by ‘sociopath CEOs’, no longer work for the information age, he also clarifies something that is often stated as fact: That blockchain is the technology that underpins bitcoin.

“Blockchain isn’t the tech behind bitcoin, it is one of the technologies - it is actually the database, the artefact, the ledger that is produced. But here is the really interesting thing: how is it produced. And the way it is produced in bitcoin and thousands of other cryptocurrencies and blockchains, that use a similar recipe, is on a completely flat, peer-to-peer non-hierarchical network where nobody knows or trusts anybody else. 

"Where we are able to engineer an emergence of an artefact, a ledger that records transactions that everybody can trust, that no one has the power to change, to modify after the fact, that removes the trust from the person to a mathematical construct that is neutral. That process is called consensus. It is the fundamental invention behind bitcoin and all the other digital currencies as a way to achieve trust at massive scale on a completely flat network. It allows us to achieve such a level of trust that we can conduct transactions worth billions of dollars…”

Phew! Something to think about!

It’s not too late to join us in Amsterdam next week for some fascinating blockchain insights