The evolving distributed ledger tech landscape

Yesterday I gave an abbreviated presentation based on R3CEV research first publicly shown at the GaiaX – Blockchain University event “Blockchain Summit” held in Tokyo.

[Japanese translation 日本語]

Note: below are the citations and notes for several of the slides:

  • Slide 3: The companies in the red square boxes are some of the startups that are primarily trying to create non-cryptocurrency distributed ledgers. (Source: Startup Management)
  • Slide 6: CB Insights
  • Slide 7: CNN|Money
  • Slide 9: Twitter
  • Slide 10: CoinDesk Venture Capital aggregation
  • Slide 13: The great pivot or just this years froth? and NY Post estimate
  • Slide 15: Field of Dreams image in reference to the model that you build it first with the hope that customers come
  • Slide 19: One example of this euphemism is from Adam Draper (and a similar reference point on Twitter).  Each of these five companies has a couple product lines, one of which focuses on cryptocurrencies in a non-marginal manner.
  • Slide 21: This list could include a number of others including Tezos (DLS) and a handful of other startups including a couple in Japan
  • Slide 22: Aite Group
  • Slide 23: Collective head count for these companies is just under 100 and total funding raised (that is publicly announced) is around $10 million.  There are still more companies trying to build foundational layers (some proprietary, others open) than teams building applications on top.   Legend in parenthesis: E=Ethereum, R=Ripple, CP=Counterparty, OA=OpenAssets, TM=Tendermint
  • Slide 24: Most of the large non-bank financial institutions such as clearing houses and exchanges all have working groups focused on distributed ledger technology (e.g., CLS, SWIFT, LSEG, CME, Nasdaq, Deutsche Borse, DTCC).  The Linux Foundation project is in its formative stage.