[2016-02-29] Hindu: What blockchain tech can do for India’s underbanked

What blockchain tech can do for India’s underbanked

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/business/what-blockchain-tech-can-do-for-indias-underbanked/article8294644.ece

Last year, in a report, the Reserve Bank of India acknowledged the transformation the technology can bring to various financial market transactions. Bitcoin, a web-based “cryptocurrency” used to move money around quickly and anonymously with no need for a central authority, is one such increasingly popular alternative. Block chain (increasingly now referred to as blockchain), the underlying technology, is a distributed — across a network of computers — ledger secured cryptographically, which can be used to record any transaction (including an exchange of value).

In an interview with Sanjay Vijayakumar , Brock Pierce, managing partner at Blockchain Capital (a venture capital firm that invests in blockchain-enabled technology companies), and chairman, Bitcoin Foundation, which advocates bitcoin and its development, speaks about the currency and its use-cases in a market like India.