IIC Singapore – TRPC Forum: Blockchain and its Applications

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About the Forum:

A ‘blockchain’ (or distributed digital ledger) is potentially a major disruptive disintermediating technology in the making. A distributed digital ledger records all transactions online so their history is transparent and available to anyone at any time through connected devices.  All participants can query in real time the validity of a new transaction. So the ‘crowd’ replace a ‘central authority’ for authentication. Each device can store its own updated copy of the ‘ledger’. Each ‘block’ in the chain is a recording of current transactions that is added permanently to the previous blocks to form the chain.

Blockchains can be public digital ledgers or private closed user groups, proprietary or open source. Although closely associated in its early days with cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, a blockchain technology and its algorithms can be applied to any process of transactions, whether the unit of account is money or not. The algorithms that run it can be tailored and customised to any sector.

Why use a blockchain? It automates what is traditionally a highly intermediated process of transactions accounting.  Costs can be cut by reducing the need for, or cutting out entirely, a central authority, a clearing house, an accounting or compliance department, or a third party to track and trace. Software can be applied to identify suspicious transactions, with or without human help.

Legal software can be applied to write instant ‘smart contracts’ together with digital signatures for the more standardized and regular transactions.

When blockchains are used across numerous players, such as in FinTech, there is a need for standard protocols and APIs to ensure inter-operability. This is the basis of collaborative working.

These and related themes will be explored in the forum with presentations from those developing blockchains and those using blockchains.

Speakers

• Blockchain and its Many Applications

Joseph Toh, CEO, Digital Billions

• Smart Contracts: How They Work and Blockchain

Jeremy Tan, Director, Holborn & Olswang

• Blockchain in the Corporate Governance Business

Jan-Arie Byloos, Head of Business Development, Otonomos

• Blockchain and SMEs

Danny Venables, Digital Architect, Microsoft

• Distributed Ledgers and the Collaboration Imperative

Antony Lewis, Director of Research, R3

• TenX, Decentralized Banking Platform

Warren Goh, CXO, ONEPAY

Supporting Organisation and Venue Sponsor:

Supporting Organisations: