Digital currency was the first application of blockchain technology – so it only makes sense that banks were among the first institutions to look into other applications.
But as those same institutions pursue blockchain trials and proofs-of-concept focused on finance, both startups and established companies are setting their gaze beyond the world of banking.
Speaking at today’s Consensus 2016 blockchain conference in New York, leaders from those firms, alongside legacy players looking to build new products for their clients, painted a broad portrait of how distributed ledgers are positioned to change much more than how we control and spend our money. Smart contracts
What could have easily become a competition for which platform is best for building smart contracts turned into a conversation about the importance of a diverse ecosystem to the nascent industry.
Speaking on the panel about how to make the most of smart contracts Ethereum consultant Taylor Gerring smiled when asked by the moderator which platform he would use if building a smart contract. Gerring acquiesced with the expected sales pitch for Ethereum and its Turing-complete architecture. The audience laughed with recognition of the obvious answer.
But, panelist Diego Zaldivar of open-source smart contracts platform Rootstock, which last month raised $1m, soon stepped in. "For me it’s not a competition," he said. "What we are doing is building a full new ecosystem, like we were doing back in the web."
Gerring responded by pointing out that blockchains like Ethereum and bitcoin aren’t the only platforms for smart contracts, citing work from InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) as an example of other even newer ways to write smart contracts.
Patrick Murck, of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, interjected that during the early days of the smart contract ecosystem it was important not to rush to standardization too early."The biggest risk is […]
