September 2016: Blockchain’s Limits

While you’ll be reading this in September, as I’m writing this column it’s still the Dog Days of Summer. As such, Waters’ editor-in-chief, Victor Anderson, is on a well-deserved vacation. So once more, you get the US editor in the leadoff position. 

We have an exciting lineup of features covering a wide range of topics this month. October will mark my seven-year anniversary with Waters, and one of the things that I’m most excited about is how much our coverage area has expanded. Along with Victor and myself, we have two reporters in New York (Dan DeFrancesco and Emilia David), two more in London (John Brazier and Aggelos Andreou), and we recently added a seventh member to the editorial team, Wei-Shen Wong, who is based out of Hong Kong. Our features this month reflect this global approach.

But rather than talk about those articles, I want to look ahead—to October, to be specific. My colleagues and I are currently cobbling together a piece looking at the hype surrounding blockchain technology. One thing that I’m finding is that the blockchain conversation is being drowned out in noise where specifics are few. There will clearly be major benefits that will result from blockchain-underpinned platforms and processes, but there are some—including myself—that have serious doubts as to the reach of those benefits. 

The feature will aim to provide some perspective into what actual C-level technologists working at asset managers and banks feel about the blockchain. The discussions are on background in order to get a true feel for where they stand on this issue.  Here’s what the conversation of blockchain in public sounds like to me: If you aren’t an evangelist, you’re an outsider. I think that many of my contacts, anyway, are slow to be critical of blockchain in public forums, for fear of appearing to be on the fringes of innovation. 

Again, there will be great benefits for the capital markets once some of these blockchain implementations start to seep into the marketplace. This feature will simply look to see where actual heads of technology will be focusing their time (and budget) when it comes to blockchain, and it will look at the areas of the market where they believe that there’s potential for blockchain to be disruptive. And it will also show what these respondents believe to be far-fetched. I will say this: Thus far, while CTOs and CIOs are following progressions in the space, they’re too tied up with everyday projects to worry about something that is so far off. So it begs the question: Is blockchain taking too much air out of the room? What’s more important: blockchain or machine learning, which is producing major results right now? Just check out this month’s cover story, for proof. 

If you have thoughts, shoot me an email: anthony.malakian@incisivemedia.com. In the meantime, enjoy the issue.