About the author

Tim Swanson is the founder and director of research at Post Oak Labs and Head of Partnerships and Market Intelligence at Clearmatics.

He was previously a visiting research fellow at the Singapore University of Social Sciences as well as at Sim Kee Boon Institute at Singapore Management University.  He worked in East Asia for more than six years and is currently based in the US.  He is a graduate of Texas A&M University.

His 2015 paper: “Consensus-as-a-service: a brief report on the emergence of permissioned, distributed ledger systems” popularized the term “permissioned” blockchain (or ledger), a topic which remains a mainstay at fintech conferences globally.

He is the author of three books:

He was an advisor to Blockseer (acquired by DMG), and to Hyperledger (acquired by Digital Asset).  He does not own any cryptocurrencies in any of the companies or projects he has written about, nor has he received financial compensation for including companies or projects within his articles.  He was previously the Director of Market Research at R3.

His research papers have been cited in a variety of media and has appeared on more than one hundred industry panels and events over the past eight years. He is also frequently quoted in media including: Wired, MIT Technology Review, Reuters, The New York Times, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, The New Republic, American Banker, and International Business Times.

He can be reached at: tim at postoaklabs dot com

Presentations, panels, and events:

    • State Street Innovation Symposium – October 15, 2015
      • Panel: “Blockchain and the Distributed Ledger Landscape”
    • Informational session for Axel Springer – October 1, 2015
      • Executive roundtable covering “Identity Management and Digital Currency”
  • CoinDesk conference “Consensus” – September 10, 2015
    • Panel (writeup): “Trust, Permissions, Openness: The Future of Innovation on the Blockchain”
  • American Banker conference “Digital Currencies + the Blockchain” – July 28, 2015
    • Panel (writeup): “Can the Blockchain Really be Separated from Bitcoin”
  • Blockchain University (in Bangalore and Mysore India) – July 20 through July 23, 2015
  • BNY Mellon Silicon Valley Innovation Center – July 9, 2015
  • BNY Mellon dinner – July 8, 2015
  • Blockchain University (at PwC San Francisco) – June 27, 2015
  • Orange Telecom conference “Putting the Blockchain to Work” – June 10, 2015 (recap)
    • Panel: “New & Innovative Uses of the Blockchain”
  • Breaking Banks: “Bitcoin: Hope or Hype?” – May 23, 2015
  • Blockchain University demo day panel (judge) – May 18, 2015
  • R3CEV roundtable (NYC) – May 13, 2015
    • Panel: Discussion of Consensus-as-a-service (pdf)
  • DBS / Startup Bootcamp hackathon (Singapore) – May 8, 2015
  • Sim Kee Boon Institute conference “Digital banking, financial inclusion and impact investing” (Singapore) – May 6, 2015
    • Panel: “Exploring the technology in FinTech for Digital Banking”
  • Sim Kee Boon Institute roundtable (Singapore) – May 5, 2015
  • Interview and question/answer session with Seedcoin – April 24, 2015
    • Research session with financial institutions related to distributed ledger technology and startup landscape
  • Interview and question/answer session with Gravity-Europe – April 17, 2015
    • Gravity-Europe-led research session on distributed ledger technology
  • Stanford Blockchain Workshop (writeup) – March 23, 2015
    • Panel: “Technical Aspects of Blockchain-based applications”
    • Panel: “Exploring alternative currencies”
  • Stanford Blockchain Workshop – March 21, 2015
  • Interview and question/answer session with the Institute for the Future – March 13, 2015
    • IFTF research focusing on usages of the technology and emerging challenges
  • Guest presentation (slides) with Tim on “Understanding value transfers to and from China” based on research for Melotic, for SKBI in Singapore and for a panel at “Blockchain Global Impact” conference
  • Guest presentation (slides) with Tim on “Is the adoption of blockchains and consensus ledgers a foregone conclusion?” for Sim Kee Boon Institute lecture.
  • Guest presentation (webcast) with Tim at O’Reilly Media regarding “Moving Beyond Bitcoin (BINO) Beta”
  • Guest presentation (slides) with Tim at R3 Cryptocurrency Roundtable regarding “Making Lemonade out of Lemons: Squeezing utility from a proof-of-work experiment” on December 11, 2014
  • Guest presentation (intro, webcast) with Tim at O’Reilly Media regarding the “Continued Existence of Altcoins, Appcoins and Commodity coins”
  • Panel: “Cryptocurrency: Financial Market, Innovation and Analytics” in Singapore for SKBI event on November 4, 2014
  • Guest presentation (slides) with Tim at SKBI / Singapore Management University regarding “Moving Beyond BINO Beta: Transitioning mindshare from the Bitcoin-for-everything monopoly to a competitive consensus-as-a-service marketplace”
  • Guest presentation (video) (slides) with Tim at Plug and Play Tech Center in Sunnyvale regarding the “Continued Existence of Altcoins, Appcoins and Commodity coins”
  • Guest presentation (video) (slides) with Tim at Stanford regarding sidechains, “Blockchain 2.0” and information security.  Based on a research paper (pdf)
  • Guest presentation (video) (slides) with Tim at the Institute for the Future regarding financial incentives for running a mining pool and the public good’s issues surrounding the Bitcoin network, protocol and ecosystem.  Based on a research paper (pdf)
  • Guest presentation (video) (slides) with Tim at Hacker Dojo regarding smart contracts, smart property and trustless asset management
  • Guest presentation (video) (slides) with Tim at Shanghai University of Sport regarding futureproofing your educational skills and knowledge [Chinese write-up at SUS]
  • Panel (video) with Tim, Atif Nazir (co-founder of Block.io), Matthieu Riou (co-founder of BlockCypher) and Greg Slepak (co-founder of okTurtles Foundation) at Blockchain University
  • Panel (video) with Tim, Jackson Palmer (creator of Dogecoin) and Tina Hui (creator of Follow The Coin) covering cryptocurrency adoption, self-regulation, tipping, transparency, affinity fraud and other topics.
  • Panel (video) with Tim, Adam Krellenstein (Counterparty), Oleg Andreev (CoreBitcoin), Pamela Morgan (Empowered Law), Stefan Thomas (Codius, Ripple Labs), Stephan Tual (Ethereum), Yurii Rashkovskii (Trustatom) and moderated by Roman Snitko with Straight.  Topics revolved around the development of smart contracts.
  • Panel (video) with Tim moderating first anniversary of Dogecoin with panelists: Marshall Hayner (Block.io) and David Dvorak (DogeTipbot)
  • Panel (video) with Tim moderating debut of Blockchain University with panelists: Tom Ding from Koinify, Ryan Charles from Reddit, Ryan Smith from Chain and Atif Nazir from Block.io.
  • Guest interview (video) with Tim, co-hosted by Paul Buitink and Jop Hartog, at deBitcoin, based in the Netherlands and two other guests were Roeland Creve and Andreas Wauters, co-founders of Gent Bitcoincity
  • Permissioned Ledgers And The Case For Blockchains Without Bitcoin from Epicenter Bitcoin episode #84
  • Guest interview (audio)(video) with Epicenter Bitcoin episode #63
  • Guest host (podcast): Let’s Talk Bitcoin episode #89 and episode #128 (2nd half)
  • Guest interview (podcast): Let’s Talk Bitcoin episode #116 and episode #127
  • Guest interview (podcast): Beyond Bitcoin episode #14 and episode #27
  • Interview (video) with Tim and Matt Garner regarding social media and e-commerce in China.
  • Interview (video) with Tim and Mark DeWeaver, co-founder of Quantrarian Capital Management regarding China, financial liberalization, cryptocurrencies and asset management
  • Interview (video) with Tim and Donald McIntyre of Newfination about China, smart contracts and trustless asset management

Guest articles, op-eds, and external posts:

Interviews, quotes, and citations:

Older working papers:

  • Watermarked tokens and pseudonymity on public blockchains (pdf)
  • Slicing data: what comprises blockchain transactions? (pdf)
  • Bitcoin Hurdles: the Public Goods Costs of Securing a Decentralized Seigniorage Network which Incentivizes Alternatives and Centralization (pdf)
  • Learning from Bitcoin’s past to improve its future (pdf)
  • Bitcoins: Made in China (pdf)

Academic citations and acknowledgements:

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4 thoughts on “About the author

  1. Pingback: Like He Said « Trade With Dave

  2. Hello Tim, I’m writing for a financial newspaper in Chile, I’d like to talk to you!
    Please, drop me an e-mail

    Best regards,

    Leonardo Ruiz
    Editor
    PULSO – PULSO.cl

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