Previously a CoinDesk contributing editor and COO of micropayments platform ZapChain, Daniel Cawrey is currently working on an Ethereum project for autonomous applications.
In this opinion feature, Cawrey discusses how the Ethereum platform has risen beyond its altcoin rivals to become a valuable tool for FinTech business wishing to experiment on new blockchain-based products. When it comes to bitcoin and blockchain technology, established industries have made already their technological selection – they clearly want blockchain, not bitcoin. Given the ongoing travails of bitcoin, this is arguably reasonable, and allows the focus to fall on new platforms offering different features and advantages.
While bitcoin’s ledger technology is a more natural fit for interesting innovations being built outside of incumbent systems, separating the blockchain technology for experimental purposes within existing environments has an obvious use case.
Enter Ethereum, which has been facilitating this for some time, and has now released production-ready code .
To put it simply, Ethereum is a sandbox, enabling entrepreneurs and their developers to experiment with new products, including financial ones, without the risk of harming existing systems. Experimenting with finance
This is an exciting time for FinTech. There is an eager audience awaiting fresh ideas within banking. A new generation, millennials, are beginning to make key financial choices, seeking out new and innovative banking services.
Today, there are viable alternatives to placing money into savings or traditional investment accounts. A good example is the proliferation of peer-to-peer lending, which sees investors put up money for personal loans to individuals in need of capital. Investors get a return, and individuals get the funds they need outside the restrictions of the traditional banking system. Both parties win.
And yet more inventive financial services are on the horizon. With blockchain-based smart contract systems on platforms like Ethereum, new products will proliferate in 21st century […]
