AlexTapscott

Having a distributed ledger that's global and open enables anyone, anywhere in the world to have a record of who owns what, who owes what to whom, etc. A record of the truth. Paper records and even many digital databases today exist within silos of corporations, governments etc and can be altered by any one person or persons. Consider land title registries- 5.5 billion people in the world have a flakey title to their land, because even if they own a piece of paper that says the own property, a government server or another person might have a competing claim that says something different. A corrupt government official could change his paper records and choose not to enforce your claim. With a blockchain based land registry, like the one Bitfury is building in Georgia, that would be impossible.

Hi! We think is a big innovation and not just an evolution, because for the first time, we have a truly native digital medium for moving, storing and managing value without the need for a powerful intermediary like a bank, government or technology company. This is a shift in paradigms (a term Don can use because he wrote the book Paradigm Shift) from an internet of information to an internet of value.

A lot of corporations have naturally gravitated towards the private route, especially in financial services. They like the many benefits of blockchain - speed, efficiency, cost, etc - but bristle at the idea of opening their businesses to a distributed network of millions of participants, many of whom would be unknown to them. So you get R3CEV and other consortiums popping up, and Ripple which was supposed to banker friendly.

Our personal view is that blockchains based on Satoshi's original white paper, which are distributed and open and invite experimentation and invention, will prevail in nearly all use cases. Even more recently, you're seeing hybrid versions, like IBM's hyperledger or Chain inc's Chain OS, which try to blend private and public.

Tough call! We had a family dog named Arnold who was a 135 pound Bernese Mountain Dog who was both noble and very chill. but I just got a miniature Dachshund puppy named Hugo who is the cutest thing on the planet and he is also pretty cool. Call it a draw?

Well, I think Canada is already a leading in blockchain tech. Ethereum, founded by a group of Canadian developers led by Vitalik Buterin (Toronto native and resident), recently surpassed one billion dollars in value. Consensus Systems, run by Canadian CEO Joseph Lubin, is building decentralized applications that promise to shake the windows and rattle the walls of a dozen or more industries, we have Blockstream, Ledger Labs, Paycase, Unocoin, etc - so Canada is doing well. But that position can't last forever, and it will require stakeholders beyond tech - including in the corporate sector and even gov't - to sustain leadership.

Of course, blockchain could help Canada, as it could other countries, in profound ways. Making a financial system that is inclusive and efficient, making governments more accountable for their actions, streamlining the delivery of government services, ensuring creators of content get compensated fairly, protecting privacy, etc.