Read This Book, See The Future

Oxford Economics’ author Joan Warner’s review of Blockchain Revolution was published this week. In the review, she describes the Tapscotts’ take on blockchain’s effect on mortgages, pharmaceuticals, banking, and even grocery store pricing.

The review takes a look at possible applications in the future, as well as risks that any would-be blockchain supporter needs to take into account: hacking, privacy, and even the carbon footprint of the blockchain itself.

The review goes on to look at practical applications of the ‘ledger of things’ (the Tapscotts’ nickname for the next generation of the internet) – what if a necklace or a drug came with its own provenance, reported back to the blockchain and all interested parties?

Stephen B. Shepard, my former editor-in-chief at Business Week, got his start in journalism as an engineering reporter. One day, he told me about what it was like to cover a new technology that was just starting to capture the public imagination: the laser. “Everybody knew it was going to change a lot of things, maybe everything,” Steve said. “We just didn’t know exactly how.”

I think blockchain is like that.

Read the full review at Oxford Economics: http://www.oxfordeconomics.com/thought-leadership/blog/read-this-book-see-the-future