SXSWORLD

3 4 SXS W O R L D | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9 | SXSW.COM After years of bullish buildup, 2018 ushered in a decidedly bear market for cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin value dropped by more than 70 percent, while Ethereum and Ripple each shed over 80 percent. While uncertainty may hang over such virtual markets, the future remains bright for block- chain — the decentralized database technology that serves as a distributed ledger for recording cryptocurrency's acquisitions and transactions. A number of tech leaders have welcomed blockchain's currently diverging prospects as a chance to differentiate it from its roots. Commercial use cases can be found in such disparate settings as interna- tional shipping (Maersk's TradeLens), diamond mining (Tracr, from De Beers) and even advertising. Amber Baldet, former blockchain practice lead at JPMorgan Chase and now co-founder and CEO of Clovyr, finds blockchain critical to what she calls the "Internet of Value." "What's really revolutionary about blockchain is that you can credibly send something and then not have it anymore, and that's not something you can do with traditional Internet protocols. So there's this push to tokenize things and then be able to move ownership rights around the world," she says. "That works whether you're talking about a dollar or a record of a mortgage or a piece of fine art." The ordering of information matters tremendously in such exchanges, and the transparent nature of blockchain is key to establishing and maintaining trust. Baldet acknowl- edges that such an approach is not without an element of risk. "Possession is still nine-tenths of the law, and you might have a digital token that says you own something, but you don't have physical owner- ship," she says. "But certainly the ability to bring down the barriers to creating microeconomies is a huge opportunity to every industry." That opportunity extends beyond industry and commerce. Designer and artist Yin Aiwen is experimenting with blockchain in Phi, a renewable energy exchange. She finds the technology a natural connective foundation for grassroots, collec- tivist efforts. "Bottom-up initiatives often have the problem of trust during the scal- ing-up process," Yin explains. "They start with a small and trusted com- munity that allows a lot of flexibility and personal negotiation because there is basic personal trust ... But that trust is easily diluted when the project scales up. Blockchain as a technology gives the potential to secure trust without getting a third party involved." Blockchain has by no means been isolated from the hype that fueled the cryptocurrency boom, Baldet agrees, noting that all the early attention led to investment in academic studies and research that will soon bear fruit. "There will be credible advancements coming out that are going to help the next crop of projects actually be able to deliver on what people said they were going to do," she says before concluding: "What gets me excited here is that it's still so early." Amber Baldet and Yin Aiwen will both be part of Blockchain & Cryptocurrency Track sessions at SXSW 2019. Visit schedule.sxsw.com for more details. Blockchain Technology Outgrowing Its Cryptocurrency Roots By Patrick Nichols Amber Baldet. Photo by Benjamin Spradley Yin Aiwen "Blockchain as a technology gives the potential to secure trust without getting a third party involved."

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