Do I know anyone using bitcoin on a daily basis? The answer is no and I suspect that is the case for the vast majority of people. Do I believe that it fills a void in the economic system? Again, the answer is no. Where will it be in terms of its rate against the dollar in, say, one year? I don't have a clue. Having said all that, there is a glaring reality that the blockchain technology underpinning the currency is now making inroads into the real world. I will expand on this and give an example of a company that may well be impacted by it.
Although Tantalum is not exactly a household word, it certainly is used by far more people than bitcoin. In fact, it's quite likely that you are utilising it right now in a gadget that you are using or carrying. Fair enough, the quantity may be absolutely microscopic but it is incredibly useful and sought after, especially for the production of electronic components. And therein lies the problem. It's mined in some of the most dangerous and conflict ridden parts of the world, such as Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Whether we like it or not the problems affecting these areas are now impacting us. From terrorism to the migration of millions of people. In a globalised world of mass transport and communications systems, their issues are now our issues.
One of the drivers of the carnage that has impacted places like the DRC has been the money derived from mining, amongst other things, Tantalum. To put this into context, the Great African war in the DRC killed 5.4 million people by 2008. This tragedy has not gone unnoticed. Both the US, through the Dodd-Frank Act and the EU with The Conflict Minerals Regulation have sought to address the problem. In essence, both require companies based in their jurisdictions, and beyond, to use certified sources of certain minerals and that includes Tantalum. That takes me back to the technology behind bitcoin.
I would suggest that the blockchain lends itself to verifying the source and confirming the end user of this very valuable commodity. Moreover, I would argue that the dynamics of the Tantalum industry are favourable to a blockchain based supply system. For a start, there are very few major end users…
That works if - and only if - you can link the physically mined mineral to the record on the digital ledger and I don't know how you'd do that. There are some things that lend themselves to this - so Everledger use blockchain to track diamonds, but that's done by etching an identifier onto the diamond itself, and it's the identifier that's then tracked.
You can put humans on a ledger by using DNA analysis, or property records by linking them to digital map based information. But you couldn't put a specific quantity of water on the blockchain because you can't distinguish it from any other equivalent quantity of water.
Of course, you can pack your tantalum in cases and seal those cases with IoT sensors and put the sensors on the ledger and monitor them using a smart contract and then track the cases but that's not a real solution, you can suborn the packaging operatives or meddle with the sensors or bribe the people at the receiving end. Perhaps each lump of the stuff has a unique radioactive signature or something, maybe that could be tracked. Dunno.
A lot of the more outlandish blockchain claims are in this kind of area - tracking physical assets (like fish, one of my favourites). Some of it is possible and credible but much of it is simply hype either generated by people who don't know what they're talking about or by smart people trying raise money from the gullible. Blockchain is a fantastic idea which could revolutionise chains of trust and shrink supply chains dramatically - but it's not a silver bullet.
timarr
