In the late 90s, networking was among the most high-profile emerging technologies, and companies like Cisco were the rockstars. Today, networking is boring, and not much thought is given to it: it just has to work. Similarly, blockchain technology must outgrow the hype era and become basic plumbing for the internet, says Dr. Craig Wright.
In an interview with Kurt Wuckert Jr. for CoinGeek TV, Dr. Wright doubled down on his assertion that we must make blockchain boring. We have been through an era when blockchain was touted as the solution to everything, from evading government capture to curing cancer. Now, it’s time to move on to the ubiquitous utility phase, Dr. Wright believes.
“…now we move into the phase where it starts actually doing good,” he added.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been all the rage recently, with many saying that it’s potentially one of the best inventions ever. However, Dr. Wright noted that it’s been blown out of proportion.
“It’s just a better search engine that could replace Google,” he said.
AI relies on data and suffers from “garbage-in, garbage-out.” By integrating blockchain technology, AI developers can introduce data integrity and privacy and solve all their data entry problems.
Dr. Wright is the chief scientist at nChain, a role he loves as it allows him to conduct research, “sit back and play.” He says he regrets not taking a more active leadership role in Bitcoin over the past decade, but he’s now in a position to influence development and lead the efforts himself.
“We need to build and scale and have a stable protocol so that other people can build. We can’t sit there and tell them what to do: they will go out there and do it despite us,” he stated.
London is the new home for the conference series. The city is one of the world’s financial hubs and has emerged as one of the biggest players in the blockchain space. One of the most significant events in the city’s history was the Norman conquest. After the conquest, King William I commissioned the Domesday Book, which recorded all that he owned or was due to him. All its records were unalterable.
Likening it to what Bitcoin offers its users today, Dr. Wright noted, “That really got people started on understanding what they owned.”
Popping the champagne
The interview concluded with the ceremonial popping of the champagne to celebrate yet another successful conference, a tradition that dates back to CoinGeek Zurich in June 2021.
“My favorite moment of the event was hosting CoinGeek TV,” Becky Liggero stated.
“Mine was the opening. I was really enthusiastic about it as I had no idea what would happen,” stated Jon Southurst.
For Lucy Hedges, the technology journalist who hosted the business stage, it was “meeting the amazing people that went on stage to impart their knowledge.”
Victoria Scholar, the head of investment at Interactive Investor, hosted the technical stage. For her, it was learning about facets of blockchain technology that she knew very little about beforehand.
Dr. Wright concluded by thanking everyone who had attended the London Blockchain Conference.
“It’s been over a decade since I launched Bitcoin…more people are starting to understand why we need to scale, not to make some silly asset people flip to go to the moon, but because we can make something that changes people’s lives,” Dr. Wright said.
Watch London Blockchain Conference 2023 Highlights
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