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Bank of America Tech Chief Is Skeptical of Blockchain Even Though The Company Has the Most Patents For It (cnbc.com)
Bank of America tech and operations chief Cathy Bessant said she is bearish on blockchain, the technology underpinning cryptocurrencies. "I will be curious to see what the actual volume of usage is on the JPM Coin in a year," she said. Slashdot reader technocrattobe shares a report from CNBC: "What I am is open-minded," Bessant said recently in an interview at the bank's New York tower. "In my private scoreboard, in the closet, I am bearish." Bessant is wading into the debate about the blockchain, whose proponents have claimed will be as significant as the internet. A blockchain is an encrypted database that runs on multiple computers, potentially cutting out the need for centralized authorities like banks or governments to settle transactions between parties.
The technology got a boost from rival J.P. Morgan Chase, which revealed last month that it created the first cryptocurrency backed by a major U.S. bank to facilitate blockchain-related payments. But Bessant, who oversees 95,000 technology workers and was named the most powerful woman in banking last year, is a pragmatist. She started out at Bank of America in 1982 as a commercial banker, eventually rising to a series of top roles, including head of corporate banking and chief marketing officer. She has run the bank's global technology and operations division since 2010. Most of what she sees doesn't make sense for finance or significantly improve upon existing methods. She said it's a technology in search of a use case, rather than something designed specifically to solve existing problems. "I haven't seen one [use case] that even scales beyond an individual or a small set of transactions," Bessant said. "All of the big tech companies will come and say 'blockchain, blockchain, blockchain.' I say, 'Show me the use case. You bring me the use case and I'll try it.'" She added: "I want it to work. Spiritually, I want it to make us better, faster, cheaper, more transparent, more, you know, all of those things."
The report notes that Bank of America "has applied for or received 82 blockchain-related patents, more than any other financial firm, including payment companies Mastercard and PayPal."
The technology got a boost from rival J.P. Morgan Chase, which revealed last month that it created the first cryptocurrency backed by a major U.S. bank to facilitate blockchain-related payments. But Bessant, who oversees 95,000 technology workers and was named the most powerful woman in banking last year, is a pragmatist. She started out at Bank of America in 1982 as a commercial banker, eventually rising to a series of top roles, including head of corporate banking and chief marketing officer. She has run the bank's global technology and operations division since 2010. Most of what she sees doesn't make sense for finance or significantly improve upon existing methods. She said it's a technology in search of a use case, rather than something designed specifically to solve existing problems. "I haven't seen one [use case] that even scales beyond an individual or a small set of transactions," Bessant said. "All of the big tech companies will come and say 'blockchain, blockchain, blockchain.' I say, 'Show me the use case. You bring me the use case and I'll try it.'" She added: "I want it to work. Spiritually, I want it to make us better, faster, cheaper, more transparent, more, you know, all of those things."
The report notes that Bank of America "has applied for or received 82 blockchain-related patents, more than any other financial firm, including payment companies Mastercard and PayPal."
Alternative hot take: The push for "net neutrality" is an effort by the new billionaires to use government to force their business partners into subsidizing the new billionaires' network traffic.
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was getting the world to believe "don't be evil" was his rule.
It doesn't seem like a huge surprise to combine pessimism with patent accumulation: the cost of having a few relevant staff working on the project and some patent filings is fairly modest; and should blockchains exceed expectations having some strategically placed patents will be very valuable.
It's speculative behavior, not startup-that-believes-it-is-changing-the-world stuff; but making a modest investment because it has a low probability of a huge payoff is hardly irrational or unusual among people who can afford to lose the investment if the most probable outcome occurs; which likely covers BoA.
If you're skeptical about cryptocurrency, of course you'd invest in patenting the related tech. That way you don't take unnecessary risk on the volatility of the market, but still stand to make money if it works out in the end. You can even make money off it even if it doesn't work out, since you can always sell those patents to gullible ideologues or desperate patent trolls.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
Every major change in society is predicated on technological advancement. Those who believe in religions and ideologies don't like this truth, because they would prefer that the belief virus that they serve receive all the credit, but human nature only changes on evolutionary time.
The charlatan above is no different. He's imparting an ideology onto (presumably failed) technology so he can sell his ideology as the alternative.
This is precisely what the adherents of the so-called "Californian ideology" believe the internet would enable. He's actually no different than they are, he just thinks we are all sloshing around the wrong ideas.
Technology doesn't know the motives of those who invented it, but it can be used by anyone, including the people you don't like. That's what really grinds the gears of these ideological crusaders, and what the early internet utopians should have understood before they started writing declarations of independence of cyberspace.