Bitcoin Forum

Leading PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) executive Seamus Cushley says $1.4 billion has been invested in blockchain startups so far this year. Cushley, director of fintech and digital at EMEA, will discuss blockchain’s evolution on November 8 at PwC’s Business Forum in Dublin.

https://news.bitcoin.com/1-4-billion-invested-blockchain-pwc/

Blockchain technologies ≠ Bitcoin

Just the opposite, development of commercial Blockchain use, especially by mainstream banks with fraud protection, will most certainly end any public desire for Bitcoin. Why would you use Bitcoin when you can have a professionally developed system that's automatically fully integrated into society?

Current Bitcoin devs can't rapidly solve the growing pains of Bitcoin. If some well financed company like Chase bank or Wells Fargo decided to throw money at "Blockchain Technology" it sure as hell wouldn't take a couple of years to solve the block size issue.

Bitcoins continued success still relies on young people (broke people) wanting to mine free money from the internet. How survivable will Bitcoin be in ten years when that's no longer possible?

I see your point on certain aspects, but surely using the banks method takes away one of the fundamental USP of Bitcoin, decentralisation.

The people in the darknet market would prefer to use Bitcoin, so will the ransomware hackers, etc. There are also other niches where the underserved and the unbanked will prefer to use Bitcoin or because they have no choice. Bitcoin is serving and will be present in markets where the banks do not want to go into.


No. You are not seeing the whole picture. There are untapped markets where Bitcoin will be preferable. They will mostly be unregulated black market places and illegal but still potentially worth billions of $.

that is correct as long as there is reward for mining people will be vested in this technology and when that is over they will search for more green pastures for sure and it is a puzzling question will the price remain at this level when there are no perks on offer.

The public will quickly see why $1.4 Billion is invested into Blockchain technology, when they notice the banks making more profits and the fees and

charges stay the same. They are just shifting the fiat system onto Blockchain technology... The concept is the same... They create the "token" in their

private Blockchain, and nobody can follow the chain, because it will not be transparent or open to the public. They can also create as much "tokens"

as they want, and adjust this without public consensus. This is definitely not Bitcoin.  ::) It's legalized Pump n Dump schemes.

You would be surprised how long it takes a bank to implement something. It's not as quick as you're making it sound. I'm talking decades of talk before action.

I don't think so. Bitcoin remains highly attractive to a lot of people even if there are more convenient blockchain solutions by banks. We are about to enter a phase of high fiat price inflation, as central banks around the world have expanded the monetary excessively. Public debts have soared to extreme proportions. Under such circumstances, a non-inflationary and highly fungible currency like Bitcoin is perfectly suited for fiat capital flight.

With SegWit, developers made a great leap forward towards scaling Bitcoin in am efficient and decentralization-preserving way. I don't share your pessimism here.

Banks are using "Blockchain Technology" to provide centralized services. However the only reason for using a blockchain is enabling decentralization. Blockchain use comes with a huge loss of efficiency compared to traditional databases that makes no sense at all for centralized solutions. Banks will waste their money...

ya.ya.yo!

It's true many here are wanting extra income (broke people), but the Bitcoin isn't only that. Bitcoin is also a new way to make transactions nad buy things. It's the future coming and with many benefits for everybody.

People will still use this coin after 10 years, and if don't use Bitcoin, they will use another virtual currency. Nobody can stop this power anymore.

A billion really is not that large when you factor in this is a currency being used around the world,so it taps into any one that could function on the internet. As a example I read MLB pitchers cost a billion a year and baseball is a American sport for the most part.

Also wonder how much of the investment is big companies tinkering with the idea of blockchain.

PwC talking about how much the financial industry is investing in blockchains..

short version blockstream <-> hyperledger
i wonder if greg maxwell, adamback, or the other cronnies are going to dublin this week to say some puff piece about their involvement

I want to know how much from this 1.4 billion goes to scam altcoins and how much this 1.4 billions worth now because for sure tokens/coins got a up in the marketcap...

I think you know why. I would not even consider using bank-chains. Hell bitcoin is exactly rejecting using a professional system fully integrated into society, i.e. fiat.

Not bad in my opinion, could be better but $1.4b going into startups alone is pretty impressive already. I'm just confused as to what's making those startups so valuable compared to everything else. It's not really like there's a ton they can develop and have useful anytime soon, so what are they investing in?

but you are educated and know better. if they start throwing massive money at it and advertise it, then most people will believe almost everything they say. bitcoin could struggle and have to watch how fast and big they grow. this is sad, but the world we live in.

the bitcoin-core devs ARE the ones coding hyperledger (bankers blockchain).
big banks HAVE throw money at the bitcoin devs.. and the devs HAVE extended the pains of attempted growth.. taking longer then a couple years to solve the blocksize issue.

go look
hyperledger blockstream
then look at where the funding is coming from.

as for the amount $1.4Bill.. pfft that is pennies to them. infact its nothing. literally a tax refund to them
put it this way, by them putting funds into it (as a tax lookhole(foundations/charities (https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/exempt-organizations-select-check-deductibility-status-codes))). it costs them nothing yet they get to play with the funds after writing it off.

Unfortunately I think you're right.

The banks blockchain might be amazing and get a lot of promotion, but they wont be clear and transparent at all, they will only raise their profits, and for me i does consider it as a good thing to bitcoin grow as well, because make a blockchain means bitcoin had something good.

Isn't there a fundamental difference between a public blockchain (bitcoin) and a private blockchain? Private blockchains are not really open ledgers and are a little different than blockchains that are independent of banks.

Yes and there is an argument that it would be cheaper and more efficient for the banks to use their current systems or use a database. Also why would the banks use a blockchain? That would mean that they would have to share their data to all the other banks. Do the banks really trust each other that much? What secures this private blockchain, is it also proof or work? I cannot imagine a real blockchain without proof of work.

I think its gonna take a little bit of time to feel the effects of this at the price of the bitcoin. And i think its gonna be an interesting year for bitcoin at 2017. I feel its gonna be the year of cryptocurrencies especially for bitcoin. The news is not surprising because media are starting to advertise bitcoin. So i expect more this kind of news especially 2017.

its not Proof of Work(PoW), but Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT)
http://www.coindesk.com/digital-asset-new-details-hyperledger-blockchain-platform/
http://www.coindesk.com/stellar-ripple-hyperledger-rivals-bitcoin-proof-work/

the reason it is cheaper and better, is simple. they can sack their own internal security/auditors/investigators. by automating it they can reduce other security aspects needed in each bank branch and reduce the central servers needed at a head office to being just a few small computers dotted around the country.

but Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) is in someways less secure than PoW, and also the hyper ledger will be missing some of the other 10 security features that make bitcoin bitcoin.
after all "blockchain" is just 1 out of 10.. 10% of the security feature that makes bitcoin. which is why it will only be a closed system to reduce some of the risks compared to what would be required if it was an open system

Of course you would, you still know better even after all the bad media attention Bitcoin has had.

I'm talking about the average joe that would never even consider using Mark Karpeles' and Trendon Shavers Bitcoin. They will believe they are getting the best part of Bitcoin without the risk.

According to the new report, global investment in fintech companies totaled US$19.1 billion in 2015, with US$13.8 billion invested into VC-backed fintech companies, a 106 percent jump compared to 2014, and a record year for VC-backed fintech investment. <Mar 9, 2016>

Guess who is suddenly investing the most? http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/09/banks-pile-into-heady-fintech-funding.html

They have done nothing for years, and when they realized how disruptive Bitcoin will be to them, they quickly started to throw money at the problem. ^LoL^

Banks and big corporations are heavily investing on bitcoin because they know it is the bigest threat to their business. That is why I think the have this mantra, If you can beat them, join them. :) Really, bitcoin is the game changer.

This is good news.The more businesses invest into bitcoin startups and blockchain technology the better.

I`m not sure what will be the profit for those investors. ;D

Let`s hope that these legit bitcoin companies will grow and more people will know more about btc.

There is lot more bigger differences and real life application for public and private blockchain. Banks and government are investing in private blockchain based techs so that they can provide bitcoin like secure, transparent (not decentralized, public chain) banking services to people who love to use bitcoin. On the other hand projects that are trying to support public chain or advance public/decentralize chain get most of the investment from indivisual bitcoin investors in the form of ICO's rather than formal crowdfunding.

Just noticed this now and am amazed with the large sum invested into blockchain technology and innovations. What got me further interested was the fact that Pwc was experimenting on Blockchain technology for the reinsurance industry to save costs by better handling of data through appropriate blockchain time stamping and that's a pretty good move. Only thing that doesn't get me clear is how it boosts client satisfaction. Apart from all of these, I'd love to see more investments in blockchain innovations for storing Identities and would be something to be easily accessible.