Khan Says Blockchain Provides Piece of Mind

joining us on Bloomberg Business Week. How you doing, bo Well, Hey, thanks for having me and today I'm actually in Princeton. Oh you're close by. Great to hear. Um. Well, next time we're gonna have to get you in the studio here at Bloomberg Headquarters. Ian, I wanted to talk a little bit about sort of start at the top here because we're lucky we have quite a few minutes with you today. Um, explain blockchain and the promise that you think it offers. Still, blockchain, I I think is the

most confused technology. But really if for me, what blockchain significant signifies is piece of mind. That's how I equate that technology to a result, piece of mind because it takes care of trust issues, it takes care of packing, it takes care of data protection takes off a lot of things that traditionally we have been unable to do with databases and computer technologies that we've had. And that's

what blockchain does in a very complicated way. Yes, it's being defined as a ledger in the sky, and it's an imputable ledger of records. But but hey, I I love the simplified definition, which is peace of mind technology, something that creates trust and enables trust. Give me a more tangible example than that, something that you think has been improved by blockchain technology or or will will very soon be improved by the blockchain. Of course, there's many,

many different use cases of blockchain. I love the ones that uh that are happening in the food industry. Australians be exports are about the fake Australian beef exports counterfeit. Australian beef exports are about two billion dollar industry and uh, these foods we don't know what the origin is, but their scamped is Australian beef. Uh. There's a company, I believe, beef Chain, that's trying to solve this problem by certifying

beef that originates from Australia. It's stamped at the beginning of the process of export, and you can scan the package at the grocery store and and and see the whole journey that this packet of beef has taken. The examples such as Walnut is doing something with with produced tracking UH and UH lettuce tracking, and it's got uses when you're tracking the spread of diseases like feminela or

any other contamination of foods. There's examples from the logistics industry where transportation off certain types of equipment or goods or vaccine as an example, have to be done under controlled temperature, under controlled conditions. And in a traditional industry, traditional refrigeration industry, if the power goes out on one of these units, it's kind of hard to figure out

what has happened. But with blockchain enables container ships that are temperature controlled, you can verify that information really quick and figure out that there's something wrong wrong. The reason why we're able to do this is the god because you can't manipulate a blockchain database. You're unable to UH insert records in it or or modify it in any way that is not authorized. So once let's use this

beef example from Australia that you talked about. So once it's been been and I don't want to say stamped on the blockchain, but how how is how is it associated with the blockchain? Like what is the physical thing that becomes a part of this beef on the package

that that puts it on the blockchain. So blockchain is essentially a database and everyday people you need, the industry, the farmer are never going to touch blockchain as such, but it powers the underlying system on which it needs add it's something that associates it with the blockchain, right, correct, correct, And you can use r ify the your barcodes not give you an example. So at the beginning of the farm, you can have let's say cattle that are at this

farm and they're taken to the harvesting site. Right there at that site, you have a barcode that's generated associated with a certain animal that tags that carcass to its journey as its as its processed and package. That barcode

signifies the start of that journey. As that barko progresses through the processing plant to the shipping to the logistics and it reaches the end of its journey, You're actually information is continuously added to the sight with us because we're gonna do some news and come back in just a few minutes and also talk cryptocurrency because we haven't talked about that as a form of use of the blockchain and and con technology futurist, let's get right back

to it with Ian Cohn. He's the director of the Amazon Prime documentary Blockchain City, also the upcoming film Bitcoin Dilemma, the author of several books as well. He joins us on the phone from Princeton, New Jersey. Ian, when right before the break, we were talking all about applications for blockchain that we're what I would consider not non financial. You didn't mention cryptocurrency once, so I want to dive into that right now. Why Why didn't you mention cryptocurrency

as one of the top applications for blockchain technology? Because I think that's where a lot of people associated with Absolutely, I think cryptocurrency is one important side off blockchain, but not the most important side. And that's that's my opinion. Uh, And it's because cryptocurrencies are in a very initial development

phase right now. Yes, Bitcoin has been out there for the last ten twelve years, but it's waves ahead until the financial systems globally accept criptal currencies if they do as a stable form of payment or or asset class. But that's happening very very slowly. The other applications of blockchain, in fact, are proceeding really much rapidly, and the applications are tremendous, from insurance industry to logistics, to food, to retail, education,

music rights, intellectual property. There's a limitless number of applications. Crypto is just one of them. When do we get to a point where people like me don't ask you questions about applications for blockchain technology? That is, where it's something that is so present in our lives. If ever that we'll all know what it does, yep. I think it will be still some time, and it might happen

in a way in different ways across the world. It may happen in certain regions or countries that are faster adopting digital any or cryptocurrencies, and it might take decades in some other parts of off the world. Uh. And it all depends on adoption. It all depends on how

progressive financial systems and governments in those countries are. We're seeing some some countries adopt bitcoin as a form of currency of Salador just did that some time ago, although yes, a very small nation economically, but but that push has started to happen. Will that happen in the United States or China or once the world's largest economies. It's it's a big, big change, and I don't believe it will

happen just in a few days. Do you think it will happen with bitcoin that will be the cryptocurrency or do you think you know? One thing that I hear from a lot of experts in people in the spaces, they've said, okay, well, you know, the blockchain technology is like the underlying technology that the Internet was in the A well days and and a well though is is

like the cryptocurrency of of of of bitcoin. So the technology is there, but that's a very really technology and what you're going to see built on it will significantly surpass what's available right now. I think bitcoin is of it has the hype associated with it because it was the first cryptocurrency that was out there. It is it has a very limited number of cryptocurrencies bitcoins that will ever be generated twenty one million, and so it's got

a few of those factors associated with it. In my personal opinion, it still has challenges, it's still has to overcome those challenges. And some newer cryptocurrencies are really far ahead, very faster, uh and and have got much more utility than just bitcoin. But it's it's it's one of the popular ones right because it was the first to market.

And right now is also a time of hype for cryptocurrencies, and we've seen that, uh you know, when when certain people are tweeting about bitcoin, the prices are going up

when they're yes elon musk for specifically specifically. So it's a very hyper driven um era where consumers are taken by what popular figures in the tech industry are doing and which is not right, which is which is a challenge with bitcoin that it's it's its own fundamentals are better than that and it doesn't deserve to be taken up and down like that. So that's that's my opinion on that. And do you own any cryptocurrencies? I do,

and it's a very instantesimally small amount. I have deliberately done that to stay away from any kind of uh, you know question that I might it may arise I I own next to zero cryptocurrencies. Are there certain cryptocurrencies though that you are more bullish on than than others in the short term. I think, of course bitcoin see is the most popular one. UM. I like ra hashgraph uh and UH. I like Ripple a little bit, but I wouldn't I wouldn't push anybody. We can buy them

or not buy them. Do your due diligence because there are so many factors that are driving these crypto currencies. Some are fast, some have a limited quantity, some have an underlying technology. UM and I interviewed somebody on my documentary The bitcoint Dilemma. It's Dr Lehman Beard who invented the thea hash grass and it's a it's a cryptocurrency that's much faster than bitcoin, and it's got some really good things happening with it. But please do your due

diligence right and don't go with hype. Do your due diligence. Hey, UM, when you think about the future uses of of cryptocurrency, I wonder if you do see you know, like a country like China actually going through and building its own digital currency and what that means. I think China is doing something very interesting, and we know they've gone cracked down signal sequently on cryptocurrency mining, which means they're not entertaining crypto currency mining and China great, Now what do?

What will they do? There's a couple of things they could be doing. They could either be creating their own cryptocurrency and starting to plan the next few years and decades and how that would work. Uh, and also they could be looking at the digitization off the off their own currency that you want, and so there's two different things they could be doing. China is really UH an

unpredictable adversary. He really cannot predict what China is doing because of of all the reasons underlying what China does. Be surprised if they come up with their own cryptocurrency that they use internally, but at a global level, it might be a little bit of a different take. Do you think the US will be able to regulate cryptocurrency. I think it's going to be at least a decade

before that regulation happens. Although states like Texas have started putting the framework in place, they're attracting mining companies and they're kind of kind of working on that regulation. I In overall, the United States as a country, it might be a while before that happens. Ian Con I love talking cryptocurrency. Thank you so much for taking the time

and joining us on Bloomberg business Week Radio. That Ian Coon, technology futurist, documentary and author joining us live on the phone from Princeton, New Jersey.