24.11.2017Blockchains – A Valuable Commercial Contribution or a Romanticized Technology Playground?

This talk within the UZH ZI series on "Digital Transformation" by Burkhard Stiller presented (talk in German based on English slides) why Blockchains provide a modern technology for a distributed ledger, for which participating stakeholders do not need to show a pre-established trust relation. Thus, everyone can participate in case of public blockchains being used. This fact is exploited within the most prominent application of blockchains, the Bitcoin approach, a real crypto-currency.

Does this application - and others - provide a valuable commercial contribution or does the underlying blockchain technology lead into a romanticized future of trustless interactions beyond any currently known limits? The talk discusses a set of dimensions, which need to be considered carefully in the context of applications to be operated on top of blockchains.