[ad_1]
CCN is expanding. Are you our next full-time West Coast USA reporter? Send us your CV and examples here.
A recent article by Barron It describes Angus Champion de Crespigny, who spent ten years at the professional services firm Ernst and Young and led the blockchain division of financial services for years and was the subject of the article entitled "This Blockchain Believer Turned Heretic is still confident about Bitcoin "as skeptical. "Champion de Crespigny defines himself as an" expert manager with 11 years of financial services, evangelist for bitcoins and cryptocurrencies, and a pragmatist for distributed and decentralized systems ".
In the course of the interview, Champion de Crespigny talks about his experience with the blockchain and how he has transformed from "believer" to his current state as a pessimist regarding the blockchain and what he can actually do to companies. The article is quick to note that the former employee does not speak for EY – in a statement to the publication they said that blockchains "can really deliver value".
On his website, Ernst & Young supports an even more positive perspective on the blockchain:
Blockchain technology has the potential to remodel the way in which commercial transactions take place in almost all sectors of the global economy.
They note that their customers collectively have more than 50 blockchain-enabled products worldwide. And as we recently reported here at CCN, EY and many other companies of a similar nature have an insatiable need for blockchain experts. Recently, EY has also launched its own blockchain product.
But Angus Champion de Crespigny, who was in the trenches with the blockchain, is not so positive. He left college just the year Bitcoin was ending development and was a very young partner at EY when Bitcoin's blockchain was launched for the first time. EY obviously had no blockchain division at the time, and Champion de Crespigny became interested in Bitcoin long before the company became interested. As he told Barron:
So I became very involved in the community, which was quite small. […] I started recommending regulatory considerations, which are now a bit common. Over time at EY, as more and more customers were asking us, I was more and more the type to visit. Finally we formed a group. So, while I was actively working on it since 2014, the group was really formalized in 2015.
He says he has a very optimistic view of the blockchain before and after the formal creation of a consulting work on the financial aspects of it. "It would be foolish of me to say otherwise, and my opinions were aligned with many of the common views at the time."
Champion de Crespigny describes the problematic nature of a public blockchain regarding the needs of the private enterprise. From his point of view, from his experience, the usual problem was the coordination of standards for a particular blockchain product.
[…] if everyone is on standards, then it would be a great solution. Actually the process to get there is incredibly, incredibly complicated. Generally, as it evolves, we end up having to coordinate everyone. And if you can coordinate everyone, then there's often a better technology to use than a blockchain.
Legal contracts on Smart Contracts
The advanced and authorized blockchain rules become "very, very complicated" when multiple entities have to make requests. Champion de Crespigny states that in general, however, a trusted central entity is used, thus defeating the purpose of registers "without trust". It indicates a known fact: the centralized distributed registers are faster and the reason why they are faster is "because it is all built around a central control entity". The obvious counter-argument is that the central entity is responsible for a distributed centralized register. becomes an attack vector. But Champion de Crespigny also takes care of this, saying:
You want a blockchain when you do not know who you can trust, because you do not want any party to be able to arbitrarily change these things. The fact is that in the business world, we have legal contracts to do it.
Perhaps the most pessimistic statement comes later: "People are now being sold a dream that a blockchain will be easier to do all of that, and I do not think it's accurate."
Title chasers and a lack of added value
Champion de Crispigny states that some companies might opt for a blockchain even when he told them that it was not necessary or less efficient than traditional options like Oracle. Companies would be willing to explore the technology, and EY would help them do it. Then there is the hype factor: many companies have dabbled in blockchain just to get into the current news cycle, which hardly does a complete tour without mentioning crypto, blockchain, etcetera. As he says, "I will not comment on specific companies, but there is a certain amount of head heading".
Regarding the cryptocurrencies themselves and the persistent vision of many in traditional finance – "non-Bitcoin blockchain" – Champion de Crispigny believes that Westerners do not consider the valuable role that the encrypted can play in the lives of people who do not necessarily trust their local currency. Venezuela comes to mind.
But as for the blockchain that is completely revolutionizing every sector of activity, Champion de Crispigny does not see it. "I did not see where private blockchains could create any business value," he says.
Shutterstock foreground image
Get an exclusive cryptographic analysis by professional traders and investors on Hacked.com. Register now and receive the first month for free. Click here.
