In Russia, blockchain eat you
I found a couple of stories on Coindesk that show the rapidity with which Russia is embracing blockchain technology. See my blog post about it. The main state-owned economic development bank, VEB, and a handful of Russian ministries are building a blockchain research center to develop new technologies and act as a breeder reactor for them.
This was announced at a three-day conference in Tartarstan in which Ethereum founder, Vitalik Buterin, was a speaker.
The latest wrinkle is the Ethereum Foundation has signed a deal with VEB to assist the build out of the research center with the goal of making it an incubator for ethereum-based technologies.
The focus of Buterin’s comments were on the application of Ethereum to the public administration sphere. This follows up and puts paid the earlier announcements of Masterchain, an ethereum-based financial messaging system.
If you haven’t gotten the memo yet as to how important the blockchain is to Putin and the Russian leadership yet, I give you the title of this conference:
Blockchain: The New Oil of Russia
From a geopolitical standpoint it is imperative for them to do so.
And I fully expect things to degenerate to that point over the next twelve months as Russian presidential elections approach. Putin is, like Donald Trump, someone the Powers That Be does not control.
In fact, he is quite the opposite; a man on a mission to free Russia for the first time in over one hundred years from the yoke of external control.
This is a major story that continues to develop at a break-neck pace, or, more appropriately, a blockchain pace. With the Waves Platform gaining traction alongside Ethereum Russia looks uniquely placed to spearhead a different way to do business.
Add in Russian Miner Coin and their goal to control up to 30% of the Bitcoin mining pool using non-U.S. built ASICs and you have a complete nightmare from a National Security Council perspective.
If the world is moving towards the blockchain then it's pretty obvious this is something that cannot be tolerated by those that think they run the world.
30% of the hashing power to fuel the asset most likely to act as a digital analogue to gold in whatever monetary system comes next?
This will not stand.
Please Upvote/Resteem this work. Thoughtful comments are almost always upvoted as a thank you for taking the time.
Whether you are a true believer in the revolutionary attributes of blockchain technology or not, you are a fool if you don't factor in what Putin is up to on this. All he has done is outmaneuver just about every world leader and oligarch on this planet. OK, so maybe that is an overstatement, but I'm just sayin'.
Incredibly spot on analysis. Resteemed.
thank you sir. This is THE issue of the day. I have an interview with a guy from Vice.com on this later today.
On top of that, it's been easier for me to find a good Russian blog forced through a machine translator, than a good blog by an English speaker.
There are a couple of good ones, but not on economics. The Saker is good when he's on his meds. He also writes at the Unz Review. Fort Russ has good info as well. The Russophile is an aggregator. Dmitri Orlov is too full of himself (and too much of a leftie) to be consistently worth reading, I check in on him every few months.
The Duran is really the most regularly professional-grade analysis blog, but again, they don't truly understand international finance and hybrid war like I do. Not to bust my hand patting myself on the back or anything, but it's just true.
If you have others you like that I haven't mentioned, please share, I'd love to have better resources.
As usual a very good analysis from you Tom. Although I'm still against the Government+Blockchain movement in general, I find it interesting that Russia again outsmarts the US and EU (the first instance was the gold buying).
It is now up to us to stay vigilant of the following developments of this unholy marriage.
Thanks so much for saying so.
I'm not crazy about it either, just relaying what I see. That said, we, the private sector, will always be ahead of whatever gov't thinks it can do to control us. Like generals, central bankers and politicians are always fighting the last war.... they are incapable of responding pre-emptively to threats to their power.
We always find a way around them quickly, because the incentives are in our favor and the energy is against them.
Also, I think Putin is smart enough to realize this. The more I study him and the systems and solutions he has crafted inside of Russia, the more impressed I am with his understanding of what kind of governor he should be.
Great ...like it