The concept of a decentralized blockchain database is revolutionizing the way people are viewing finance. This secure means of storing financial data in ledgers eliminates the need for intermediary entities like banks, promising a future of seamless transactions among people on the blockchain, without fees, opening hours, or the risk of transactions gone awry.

Thailand's strong technological capabilities coupled with its citizens’ widespread connection to the internet positions the nation to make significant advances in, and benefit substantially from, cryptocurrencies transacted on the blockchain. 

A panel of well-renowned CEOs from a range of successful Fintech startups, adopters and implementers of financial technology attended the MITgsw in Thailand for the first time to inform and encourage startups about the benefits of this exciting, revolutionising financial technology.

Blockchain is a deep leger technology that the bank uses to track transactions. Cryptocurrencies, like bitcoin and other ethereal cryptocurrencies, use the blockchain to secure their trading and usage.

A panel of well-renowned CEOs from a range of successful Fintech startups, adopters and implementers of financial technology attended the MITgsw in Thailand for the first time to inform and encourage startups about the benefits of this exciting, revolutionising financial technology.

Blockchain is a deep leger technology that banks use to track transactions. Cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin and other Ethereum cryptocurrencies, use the blockchain to secure their trading and usage.

The fundamental platform of Blockchain is to encourage freedom and push for decentralisation. As it stands we have a very centralised and restricted financial system.

As we implement, educate and use the Blockchain, financial freedom, financial inclusion and a complete revolution of the banking structure can be executed across nations and strengthen Fintech technology.

It is not just about money, it’s about the distribution of information and the distribution of values. ICOs (initial coin offerings)  and utility tokens that can be used for goods and services on the platform is the central foundation for using this form of financial technology. We can transfer values, store values of coins and currencies which the centralised banking systems do not allow us to do as it stands. 

The security of blockchain is also very appealing as large documents can be stored on the platform in an extremely secure environment.  

ICO is the new form of raising funds and is the digital form of IPOs. The infrastructure of this technology can store data and give power to the crowd. It can validate transactions and there could be thousands of transactions that need to be validated at any given time and within the community, the utility token is a way to do the work. Once the community validates the transactions then they go on the blockchain, once on the blockchain, everyone has access to the information in a secure setting. 

Private or Public Blockchain?

Private blockchain hides the data and keeps it secure for a small number of members. Public blockchain means that people have access to the ledger and can reach a larger number of people.

These are decentralised applications of the blockchain, and the public blockchain is the best way for banks to reach a mass number of people quickly. If you have a pool of clients you might want to use a commissioned based blockchain. There is an array of blockchain platforms and in the future, the economies will change to become Smart Economies or Blockchain Economies. The variety of blockchain will range from product blockchain to private blockchains and promotion blockchains. 

Should it be built on Ethereum or other forms of crypto?

It’s completely up to you as the operating systems are very similar, like Samsung versus iPhone. The application is what you run on the top of the platform.

Crypto Kitties have formed which enables you to you buy digital kitties or Digital cats. They enable a new version of currency. It’s a decentralised application run on the ethereal blockchain for people to buy and sell digital cats. Some of them were sold for 3.5 million dollars on the application network. There was so much traffic on the blockchain that it got completed blocked.

This illustrates the lack of development from the technology side and what still needs to be developed in order to have an effective platform that runs with a heavy amount of traffic. It’s a scalability problem. If you want to make an impact on a given industry you need to solve the problem and have a smart, incentive structure to work with the transactions that are safe and fast.  

Blockchain promises to be cost efficient but now we have to increase the cost of inception and increase the incentives to ensure its smooth running.

So how can we still make it affordable?

We have to consider the economy of scale. It keeps changing very fast. Less than 5% of the countries that are issuing regulations have stated that it is temporary and it’s a way to enable security. There are some guidelines that startups need to adhere to, including taxations and tax law that changes across governments via the centralised world. In terms of regulation, ICOs should be regulated so that they can grow and develop.

The problem for cryptocurrencies is that every jurisdiction in the world has different policies that affect the regulatory policies. Across the world countries are starting to adopt and open its doors to this form of Fintech. China and Russia are becoming early adopters of ICOs and are loosening their regulations.

The US is still restrictive in terms of legalising and softening their restrictions on ICO’s purely for security reasons which have recently been issued by the New York office. The US government largely looks at cryptocurrencies as secure, however, the French government, for example, is still very sceptical of the usage of cryptocurrencies.

This is the problem of implementing blockchain across the globe as governments stand in the way until we reach a unifiable, agreeable and secure way of implementing this decentralised structure for financial tech. 

Distributed technology, however, is more borderless. Smart contracts can be devised over the Blockchain as it is a distributed ledger platform. To conquer the governments, be compliance ready and up to date with the ever-changing landscape of blockchain.

For Thailand, blockchain is in compliance with the bank of Thailand. Regulatory sandbox is the first on the blockchain in conjunction with the Bank of Thailand. No one knows how secure the blockchain is yet and if the technology is good. We need to test a lot first in the sector and see how the customers react in the banks for example.

Within Thailand, using blockchain within the healthcare system is a revolutionary idea as it can hold and retain a lot of information and documents, this can lower the costs of the health industry for example. With this type of digital blockchain platform, it can help reduce the cost of healthcare across Thailand. Regulators are trying to balance the security of customers and investors while optimising the

ICO’s is such an interesting way of building funds as a startup and can help raise money outside of  the regular way gaining investment. 8 billion dollars have been raised by ICO’s which proves their lucrative nature.

ICO is a decentralised VC  that potentially could take away a lot of business from traditional VCs and give power back to the people and startups. It re concentrates power, however, you still have to be careful of people scamming you. ICOs are not there to disrupt VCs, it's simply an alternative and can really develop and enable ecosystems of emerging markets. 

ICOs help to balance the innovative nature of startups. There is huge excitement in the market in terms of ICO’s enabling startups to progress. The market will become very fluctuant, and the startups that they invest in, may crash hard, however the ones that succeed will prosper greatly.

The Venezuelans government is starting to issue their own cryptocurrencies, therefore this is proof that the market will change in terms of ICO’s but what the landscape will look like is still completely unpredictable.

Blockchain can help with collecting big data and can improve and optimise business by putting so much information on the blockchain which will increase productivity across the world. People can be part of the distribution chain, can help change the value of currencies and the financial system as a whole. 

The Techsauce Global Summit is hosting a startup event for incubating and networking investors with innovative tech developers that are looking to strengthen the ecosystem of Thailand and south-east Asia as a whole.

For more information head over to summit https://summit.techsauce.co/

For more information on the speakers at the event follow the link http://gsw.mit.edu/2018/index.php