Vitalik Buterin Questions IBM’s Blockchain Initiative

In an interview with business news Quartz, Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, said that the misuse of blockchain innovation in a few businesses leads to “wasted time.”

Talking at the Devcon4 blockchain conference, the Ethereum co-founder said that while there are a number of companies attempting to set higher benchmarks utilizing blockchain innovation, he does not accept that the innovation applies in each industry:

“Sometimes it is for marketing hype. Sometimes it is just people who are genuinely excited about blockchains and want the thing they are personally excited about and their job to align more with each other, which is a totally legitimate, human thing to want to do.”

Buterin distinguished cryptocurrencies and cross-border payments as businesses that are best suited for blockchain technology. Buterin added “All of the other ideas — whether we’re talking about products or the self-sovereign identity stuff — that’s clearly something that still needs much more time to be worked out before we can see [whether it] makes sense at scale.”

Buterin further stated “They [blockchains] definitely don’t provide 100 percent guarantees of things, especially in the real world.” Buterin moreover criticized the proprietary nature of blockchain ventures by innovation giants such as IBM.

“I don’t understand this deeply, but the detail that jumped out at me is they’re saying ‘Hey, we own all the IP and this is basically our platform and you’re getting on it.’ And like, that’s… totally not the point….”

Buterin too alluded to the food tracking blockchain of IBM, which is developed to supply affirmation of the origin of products, expressing that while the venture has potential value, it is questionable about the company’s ability to do so.

Buterin said that he likes the thought of authenticating college degrees that’s being actualized in Singapore for non – financial applications. The innovation supposedly permits institutions to issue educational certificates digitally on a blockchain.

The Malaysian Ministry of Education declared earlier in November the creation of a University Consortium to combat degree fraud utilizing blockchain innovation. The framework is designed to issue and confirm the authenticity of college degrees, whereas the consortium itself plans at “spreading skills training” and the improvement and adoption of technology by students and academicians.