General Consultant Discussion

Blockchain technology is a pretty hot topic these days. And yet, it's not quite ready for primetime, despite IBM's recent announcement about consulting in it. This article is a pretty detailed curmudgeon's skeptical take on its future. Worth a read if you're into this sort of conjecture. http://bit.ly/2mly1Ms

Jerry. I will contradict your statement that, ""... it's not ready for prime time."" There are REAL companies using the technology and it will cause disintermediation in our ""space"" quickly. A Real Life Example: [Omisego](https://omisego.network/) has been in operation for just a couple years and has a contract with McDonalds, yes the global restaurant brand, in Central and Southern Asia, processing payments, collecting transactions, remitting taxes to authorities, at the point of sale in real time. 1 transaction, no middleman. Although the title of our article is a bit salacious... it's a heads up to any professional in the accounting and erp space. https://www.gotomyerp.com/blog/blockchain See you in the clouds.

OK. I look forward to your rebuttals of the fairly specific concerns in the article. This is great opportunity for us to learn!

I am on it now... this should be easy as the author will not benefit from this transition and he's hyping his own ""wealth management"" firm. I'll be back shortly.

All new technologies need time to percolate. Give it time to take off and gain acceptance. I am looking forward to the day my driverless car takes me to WDW overnight!! Just wondering how to get the virtual gas station attendant to refill the tank so I don't have to wake up.

Disagree with the article. Several big name banks are using Ripple, including Santander, UniCredit, UBS and Standard Chartered. In addition block chain technology is being used for document authentication by many large corporations, such as AXA Equitable, who is using it to authenticate proof of insurance documents.

IT infrastructure and communication methods may be on the verge of a massive shift (which is very likely true), but business processes won't be replaced entirely. That is practically impossible, no matter what technology is used. Every system behind a process needs to be created and managed. As we all know, that is never done perfectly. Trust in the integrity of data is not everything. The base axiom pertaining to all systems holds true: GIGO. Maybe when AI advances to near omnipotence will there be the end of all business / IT jobs, but by then Skynet will have wiped us all out anyways, so no need to lose sleep over it. :-)

And, a (block)chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

Context: The original intent of block chain as designed is NOT currency. Rather a communication protocol that could be better secured, decentralized and with the ability to monetize the actual content. Think email 2.0 steroids. This was theorized in the mid-90s and further refined into what we now call blockchaina peer-to-peer network that sits on top of the internetwas introduced around 2005-2008. After reading this article thoroughly he is cherry picking his arguments without enough technical background or history on this topic - so I attached as many points as I could address throughout the day... See you in the clouds.

That is a nice analysis @RobertEppele Not to be too picky, but there are 21 million Bitcoin (this is the maximum). The market value as of today is approximately $14,000. So the total mv is $294B.

You could give a web class for the 90 Minds members @RobertEppele - let me know if you are interested.

@MoiraGoggin, I am interested. Let me know what that entails.

I'll be in touch.