I’m going to quote Dan Morehead, CEO of Pantera Capital, and share a few reasons why bitcoin and blockchain technologies are gaining ground at the close of 2015:
Transactions have now caught up with and are growing faster than price, indicating increasing real use of the network. Source: Pantera Capital
2015 is an inflection point — financial institutions acknowledging the disruptiveness of the blockchain. These institutions are creating separate departments to explore synergies with the technology and even investing into companies in the space.
Below are how some traditional financial institutions that are now exploring the technology:
- Lloyds Bank has sponsored hackathons that include blockchain and digital currency projects.
- BNP Paribas has looked into ways to incorporate bitcoin into one of its currency funds.
- JP Morgan is one of the founding members of R3. Jamie Dimon wrote in his letter to shareholders that the firm needs to look to Silicon Valley innovators to prevent the bank’s demise.
- Credit Suisse is a founding member of the R3 blockchain partnership.
- Deutsche Bank is opening three blockchain innovation labs: in Berlin, London, and San Francisco.
- Bank of America has filed a patent for blockchain-based wire transfers.
- UBS has started the Level 39 co-working space to encourage blockchain initiatives within the bank.
- Barclays has partnered with Techstars to invest and incubate blockchain companies. Safello and Everledgr are two blockchain companies of those blockchain companies.
- Royal Bank of Scotland to pilot blockchain proof-concept in early 2016.
- Citigroup – Citi is working on “Citicoin†for cross-border payments and is an investor in portfolio company Chain.
At this point, traditional financial services firms conducting pilot programs or some sort of blockchain experiment are countless.
Read the rest of Morehead’s newsletter here. It’s pretty good.