Charles Brett's Blockchain Catch-up Week 48 (to w/e 11th December)

This is a Charles Brett’s start-of-the-week Enterprise Times ‘blockchain catch-up’ for Week 48. Necessarily it is idiosyncratic and selective.

It is not intended to be comprehensive but does seek to highlight ‘Quick Takes’ on specific developments as well interesting pieces to read, a listing of some (not all) announcements/press releases and pointers to upcoming events.

Quick Takes – Charles Brett’s Blockchain Catch-up Week 48

The simple reason DocuSign doesn’t use blockchain

DocuSign runs encrypted e-signature technology and automates and manages agreements, from mortgages to healthcare, online. COVID-19 has accelerated the shift away from paper contracts, and DocuSign believes going back to the old ways of doing things even when the virus is contained will not happen. Blockchain logically should be attractive – you would think.

Daniel Springer (DocuSign’s chief executive) says the “pandemic has accelerated the shift away from paper contracts, and we won’t be going back to the old ways of doing things even when the virus is contained. … We look at blockchain as an underlying technology that we think is actually quite intriguing. (Yet) there’s challenges with blockchain to date because it doesn’t have the scale to provide attractive economics.”

Quick Take: DocuSign voices the practical and business concerns that most enterprises have or fear – and it is in what should be a sweet spot for blockchain. It makes you think. For DocuSign, blockchain’s costs spring up from having to maintain, manage, and operate the infrastructure which has yet to see widespread adoption sufficient to incentivise engineers to solve the tough problems which cut the operational expense.

Facebook’s renamed cryptocurrency is still ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’: German Finance Minister

Per Reuters, it will take more than renaming Facebook’s cryptocurrency to address the concerns regulators have about authorising its launch in Germany and Europe, German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said on Monday. In a statement after a video conference of G7 finance ministers at which cryptocurrencies were discussed, Scholz said that relaunching Libra under its new name of Diem was only a cosmetic change. “A wolf in sheep’s clothing is still a wolf,” he said. “It is clear to me that Germany and Europe cannot and will not accept its entry into the market while the regulatory risks are not adequately addressed.”

Quick Take: Coming just before the recent FTC/48 States complaint against Facebook (and seeking the latter’s breakup), the Minister would seem to be delivering almost an anticipatory coup-de-grace to the much maligned Libra/Diem. The notion that Facebook might ‘organise’ a digital currency was frightening; now fears would seem to be receding.

7 pieces to read – Charles Brett’s Blockchain Catch-up Week 48

Selected announcements/press releases – Charles Brett’s Blockchain Catch-up Week 48

JP Morgan executes intraday repo transaction using blockchain (press release)
JP Morgan using blockchain to move billions in repo-market trades (Bloomberg news)
Starname is a bridge between blockchain and social media (press release)
PlasmaPay launches Plasma. Finance to make sense of the complex DeFi landscape (press release)
Industrial blockchain applications defy downturn to grow exponentially over the next 5 years to US$2B globally (press release)
Knowledge network (CAFCN) launched to support the sustainable development of fintech markets (announcement)
The Polkadot Multi-Chain: building out the blockchain superhighway (discussion)
Biotech TotalClarity to leverage dClinic’s private healthcare blockchain for upcoming clinical trials (press release)
4th generation JDC Hydrus7 launched at Paris Blockchain Week (press release).