During a speech at the London Metal Exchange annual dinner this Tuesday Night, former JP Morgan executive Blythe Masters spoke to an audience about the future of blockchain technology. Masters told guests that commodity market supply chains could become more efficient and dependable if they utilized blockchain. Masters explained:
Supply chains are notoriously complex and inefficient. This is especially true in the metals and mining industry where many operational and commercial practices remain inefficient and antiquated, leading to critical data omissions, security vulnerabilities, expenses, corruption, and unethical provenance…Blockchain facilitates the exchange of critical trade documents, bills of lading, letters of credit between connected users securely and confidentially. Clearly the indications for metals mining, shipping, storage, and logistics industries are nontrivial.
This is a bold prediction, but many will argue that it stands to reason that blockchains will take the place of record keeping databases in most industries, as it is a superior technology for keeping inventory. Oddly enough, although blockchain technology was created with the intent of having the specific use-case of cryptocurrency, developers are finding new ways to apply this technology to different industries every day.
Last week, CryptoGlobe reported that Overstock CEO and Founder Patrick Byrne announced that his new blockchain firm, Medici Ventures, would be making a significant investment in a company called VinX, a company that is putting the wine industry on the blockchain.
Masters already a big player in the blockchain space
Masters became the managing director of JP Morgan at age 28, after working through the ranks of the company from an internship she started as a student. After eaving JP Morgan, Masters became the chief executive of Digital Asset Holdings, a company that focuses on building blockchain infrastructure for traditional financial institutions.
In July, CryptoGlobe reported that Digital Asset Holdings signed a massive deal with Google to provide blockchain solutions for the company’s cloud services. At the time, Masters said:
We’re partnering with Google Cloud to provide developers with a full stack solution so they can unleash the potential for web-paced innovation in blockchain. This will reduce the technical barriers to DLT application development by delivering our advanced distributed ledger platform and modelling language to Google Cloud.
In addition to Google, DLT also has large partnerships with Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), and SIX Securities Services (SIX).
