Infrachain summit 2019

Some insights from our Letzblock board members

This year’s Infrachain summit was as rich in content as last year’s! One big impression summarises the day: we seem to be evolving towards the “Slope of Enlightenment” on the Gartner Hype Cycle.

With institutional actors entering more and more the Blockchain space, with the legal context becoming a bit less opaque, with POCs evolving into applications that bring tangible value for customers, Blockchain is coming out of its “Trough of Disillusionment” and seems to be evolving into a realm of realism.

The day ran smoothly as right on time with excellent moderating by Infrachain board member and LetzBlock co-founder Jed Grant, CEO of KYC3, Peer Mountain Founder. The agenda was packed with high level speakers and revealing insights. Here is a quick list of some takeaways:

Marc Hansen, Minister Delegate for Digitalisation, announced the launch of a Blockchain for the Luxembourg Public Sector
Paul Brody, EY Global Innovation Leader, announced the release in the public domain (NO licence attached!!) of Nightfall, EY’s public Ethereum business protocol. (release on Github end of May!!)
Iulian Nita, Blockchain Expert, presented the European Commission’s “European Financial Transparency Gateway”, putting financial reporting from public companies on the Blockchain and making it available to all.
Christophe Medinger, Deputy Head of Digital Banking Division, SPUERKEESS, explained the case for KYC (i.e. Know Your Customer) solutions in which the client stands central and authorizes its bank over a Distributed Ledger to communicate its unique KYC ID set to other parties, avoiding repetition of the KYC processes.
Caroline Malcolm, Head of the OECD Blockchain Policy Centre, treated the need for Blockchain specific competition policy: how much is there a risk that Blockchains will be used to collude and coordinate in anti-competitive behaviour, or use them to exclude rivals or to commit to low price guarantees?
Panel Discussion moderated by Nasir Zubairi on “The Economic Impact of Blockchain” (with Audrey Rouach Baverel -LetzBlock co-founder-, Fabrice Croiseaux, Nena Dokuzov, Patrick Houtsch, Caroline Malcolm) with a final conclusion that Identity on the Blockchain could be the next important implementation with real economic impact.

Looking forward to next year’s Infrachain Summit!!