10 Years in Bitcoin : 2012 - 2022

On 3 April 2012 my life changed; it was just an ordinary spring sunny day in London (like today) and I came across an article in the London Times about bitcoin. 

tinyurl.com/bitcoinTheTimes

That was my Eureka! moment about the potential future of money - decentralized, under the control of no-one, with no trusted central authority. Bitcoin is on a decentralized ledger called a  Blockchain.

The link above to the Times article is also on the header of my twitter account which I changed to this handle - @BitcoinByte on the same day, when I jumped into action, securing a domain and creating my first blog post on the following day:

 http://bitcoinbytes.blogspot.com/2012/04/what-is-bitcoin.html?m=0

Prior to Bitcoin and the world of digital currencies I had devoted my career to finance and innovation (e.g. Dubai) and loved technology. Having a deep understanding of how the global banking system operates my ‘a-ha’ moment came suddenly with Bitcoin. I very quickly became something of a bitcoin ‘aficionado’ to anyone who would listen and built up quite a following; from there onwards it was a fascinating ride and a lot of fun. I made friends, traveled the world to present at conferences (Cards & Payments) both in South Africa (Johannesburg) and Singapore and continued to learn a great deal. 

In 2012, the London Bitcoin scene was not yet on the mainstream radar and was a melting pot of intellectuals, futurists and open-minded disruptors hoping to bring about positive change to the current legacy banking, money and financial system. Meetups were a fun place to be, full of hope and excitement. I was welcomed by this community and seem to stand out somewhat as an older ex-establishment figure. People were often surprised that an ex-banker, someone with international experience in London, Dubai and Moscow should have embraced this amazing new scene. But far from being held at arm's length, I was supported, pushed even towards speaking out more and helping spread the word as for example in this Forbes piece on Bitcoin by Jon Matonis in 2012.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/11/03/ecb-roots-of-bitcoin-can-be-found-in-the-austrian-school-of-economics/?sh=741cbac23b18

Before long I was being asked to make presentations about Bitcoin to a major UK clearing bank in July 2012 at their Canary Wharf HQ, then again late that year to their credit card HQ in Northampton. In 2013 I was called to present to senior UK civil servants at the Future of Money event held at the Department for Business Information and Skills in Victoria. This was picked up and reported in the Financial Times:

https://www.ft.com/content/42ca6762-bbfc-11e2-82df-00144feab7de

I did other follow-up work including leading a Cabinet Office round table event, a successful and positive meeting with HMRC regarding VAT on Bitcoin - link https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2013/12/06/uk-tax-authority-hmrc-rethinks-stance-on-bitcoin/ and HM Treasury

A year after I started, I gave this interview with System D media highlighting the FT front page article on Bitcoin https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1cw251/system_d_media_interview_michael_parsons_about/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=

Next came media interest. With Bitcoin surging to $1000+ in 2013 a British national broadcaster, ITV, did a news segment on Bitcoin. ITV presented this as something of a novelty piece, I can be seen buying, on TV, the first ever pint of Beer using bitcoin (for £3.00 / 0.0474 BTC – now about £1,650!). Looking back now I am proud to have been able to bring this tech to life for skeptics. ITV have since taken down the clip, but you can still see it on the wayback machine. https://web.archive.org/web/20130629200720/https://www.itv.com/news/london/topic/bitcoin/ 

As time went on I made more friends in the space and met many of the bitcoin pioneers and thought leaders. International crypto innovators, disruptors and travelers stayed at my house. I visited many of the key active players of the time at squats and underground events. Memorable ‘pre-fame’ interactions with Vitalik Buterin, Roger Ver, Andreas Antonopolous, Nic Carey, Erik Voorhees, Amir Taaki, Mike Hearn, (etc, etc). In those days, crypto in-fighting was minimal, Bitcoin was a unifying force and Satoshi was a wonderful mystery.

Like many others, particularly after Ethereum launched, I strayed away from Bitcoin, keeping an open mind to innovation and becoming frustrated with some of its shortfalls. 

Peer–to-Peer, censorship resistant, electronic cash was still my main interest but the tantalising disruptive prospect of smart contracts was a strong siren song. But even during those years I never lost sight of where it had all begun and the key role of Bitcoin at the centre of the crypto universe.

I continued (and will continue) to make appearances on the BBC, Sky and Al-Jazeera news channels promoting and discussing Bitcoin e.g. 

BBC News - Bitcoin / CSW https://youtu.be/m-S1rCHefLU

BBC News - Bitcoin / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFfGbDtiEio

Al Jazeera  Arabic channel - Bitcoin
Al Jazeera - Arabic channel -Bitcoin
BBC R4 Report: Bitcoin - 

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/r4report/r4report_20130425-2230a.mp3?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

BBC Radio 5 Live - no link

Bit-Talk with BitcoinByte -  http://www.iamsatoshi.com/bit-talk-bitcoin-byte/

Some years ago some of my time was spent offering occasional consultancy (as a member of 3 expert networks) through my company: I have made telephone and personal presentations about bitcoin/blockchain/crypto to very well-known global companies, including merchant banks, tech stocks and global hedge funds. 

Although this article is about my own discovery of, and my 10 year bitcoin journey, – outside of bitcoin, I would mention that many of the early adopters whom I know in the blockchain/token/crypto space have gone on from bitcoin to achieve success and recognition with further innovations and development.

My predictions for the next ten years? With Bitcoin, Crypto and Blockchain now having entered the mainstream since late 2017, innovation is continuing to accelerate at an almost exponential rate, compared to the early days prior to 2015 when Ethereum (ETH) was the main additional crypto token launched. Bitcoin and Ethereum continue to be the market leaders with innovations continuing with the development of many other useful Tokens, Stablecoins, De-Fi (Decentralized Finance) and of course NFT’s (Non Fungible Tokens).

My thanks and cheers to:

https://twitter.com/BitcoinByte/status/319845760449527809

Social Media

I have also built up significant and useful networks on both on both Twitter: 

(@BitcoinByte & @Bitc01n) 

and LinkedIn: 

(http://linkedin.com/in/michaelparsons ), being connected and well-known to many of the important names in the bitcoin/crypto/blockchain space.

As at 28 March 2022: “Good job @BitcoinByte, you are 84 on #CryptoLeaders the toplist of Crypto & Bitcoin Influencers.” 

https://top.visitory.com/LeaderBoard/hashtag/CryptoLeaders/

https://twitter.com/VisitoryGlobal/status/1461316588624388096

It has been a very interesting and exciting 10 years and I wish everyone success in whatever they choose to do in the future in this fast moving, dynamic and engaging space.

Cardano: A Blockchain with privacy and regulation

Blockchain is a potentially transformative technology. However current solutions are hampered by issues such as lack of regulatory oversight, experimental software with unproven security, poor governance that stifles scalability, and a lack of long-term planning for protocols. With the imminent launch of the Cardano protocol and the completion of the first ever crowdsale to perform detailed compliance checks on its 10,000 individuals, Cardano aims to change this.

What is Cardano?
Read the full article on medium by Michael Parsons 

Blockchain and the future of audit

Some say it will be as big as the internet, so what exactly is Blockchain? 
We’ve been told that Blockchain is set to transform financial transactions and thus the world of corporate reporting. It’s predicted to be as big as the internet, but what exactly is it and how could it affect all of us?
Blockchain is a type of database known as a distributed ledger that operates on a consensus basis. Whenever a user submits a new data block to the blockchain, the majority of other users must confirm that it is valid. The database does not have a central administrator.
Read the full article and watch a video which explains what blockchain does, how it works and the ways in which it will affect us all:
Blockchain and the future of audit

Blockchain video

Blockchain - White Paper on DLT

Whitepaper on Distributed Ledger Technology


"DLT.... is better known as “blockchain.” and is essentially a technology that supports networks of databases that enable participants to create, disseminate and store information in a secure and efficient manner. While database technologies are not new, what makes DLT's special is that these networks of databases can operate smoothly and securely without necessarily being controlled and administered by a central party that is known and trusted by every participant."
"Bitcoin marked the introduction of blockchain-based DLT. Since then, there has been a rapid evolution in the design of DLT platforms. Platforms with varied features and characteristics have emerged on which developers can build different applications. DLT platforms can be divided into two main categories: unpermissioned and permissioned. In unpermissioned platforms, the ledger is maintained by collaborative action among nodes in the public network, and is accessible to anyone. In a permissioned platform, participation is restricted to member nodes only: the ledger is maintained by authorised nodes and is accessible to registered members only. Permissioned platforms enable fast transaction validation to take place, offer enhanced privacy, and at the same time take less energy to operate."


The Research White Paper 
The full DLT Whitepaper is here

In this connection, the Fintech Facilitation Office (FFO) of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has commissioned the Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI) to conduct a research project on the subject of DLT. The key objectives of this project are to carry out an open-minded and an in-depth examination of the technology (including an investigation into its potential, its risks, and its regulatory implications); and to identify possible applications of DLT to banking services by engaging in proof-of-concept work."

Rootstock Explained | Smart Contracts on the Bitcoin Blockchain

"As a concept the Rootstock [1] platform is one of those ideas that once it is proposed it is obvious that it is a great idea. Essentially Rootstock aims to be what Ethereum is, a decentralized, Turing-complete smart contract platform. However, Rootstock aims to utilize the Bitcoin ecosystem rather than creating a new one from scratch. The way this will be accomplished is via the still not fully implemented sidechains technology [2]. This approach presents both advantages, and its own set of challenges. We will briefly outline what the Rootstock platform promises to offer and then will discuss the main points of the proposal."

"Rootstock will exist as a Bitcoin sidechain. If you haven’t heard of the sidechains proposal you can review the whitepaper here, or read our explanation of sidechains here. But in summary a sidechain is a blockchain that is separate from the main Bitcoin Blockchain, but assets can be transferred back and forth."


Full post here by Albert Szmigielski

Permissioned Ledgers And The Case For Blockchains Without Bitcoin - Tim Swanson

Tim Swanson recorded this in June 2015 - an important addition to the Bitcoin blockchain debate:
One topic that is guaranteed to cause heated discussion among cryptocurrency enthusiasts is the idea that blockchains can be controlled by known validators and function without an underlying cryptocurrency. Some think this is a non-sensical idea fabricated by those spineless enough to want to appease regulators and but clueless enough to miss the whole point of cryptocurrencies. But others believe that Bitcoin is unsuited for a lof of ‘Bitcoin 2.0’ applications and that permissioned ledgers have wide-reaching potential to increase efficiency and transparency.

Tim Swanson takes part in an important discussion of permissioned ledgers. He’s among their best-known proponents and has recently published a whitepaper discussing how they work and looking at different startups in the space.

Topics covered included:
– Why the ‘blockchains without bitcoin’ idea is so controversial
– Why it is strange that KYC is done widely on Bitcoin users but not on the validators
– Why even semi-decentralized blockchains can provide big efficiency gains
– Why the 51% attack possibility is an obstacle for the use of the Bitcoin as a settlement network
– Why financial institutions don’t care about censorship resistance but do care about irreversibility

Links

• Tim Swanson: Permissioned Distributed Ledgers Whitepaper
• Tim Swanson: Needing a Token to Operate a Distributed Ledger is a Red Herring
• Robert Sams: No, Bitcoin is not the future of securities settlement
• JP Koning: Why bitcoin has failed to achieve liftoff as a medium of exchange

Discussion here:

https://epicenterbitcoin.com/podcast/084/

Bitcoin to be the world's sixth largest global reserve currency?

Bitcoin is going to be the world’s sixth largest global reserve currency, a new study has found, as blockchain becomes increasingly important to mainstream lenders.

Interviewing 30 leading bitcoin companies, mergers and acquisitions adviser Magister Advisors found that over the next 15 years bitcoin is set to soar in popularity as a reserve currency, a currency held by governments and institutions in large amounts, as part of their foreign exchange reserves.

Today, the US dollar is the most popular reserve

Bitcoin has been having a bullish month, with the price soaring to a 2015 high last week, and trading at $374 today. The cryptocurrency was also boosted by the European Commission’s recent decision to exempt it from VAT, effectively accepting it as a currency.

But the real game changer, the study argues, is likely to be the technology that bitcoin builds upon: the distributed ledger known as the blockchain.

Magister Advisors estimates that the top 100 global financial institutions will invest over $1bn on blockchain-related projects in the next two years. Major banks, including Barclays, and UBS are increasingly experimenting with blockchain to keep up with the developing technology.

Jeremy Millar, a partner at Magister Advisor, said:

"We have now reached a fork in the road with bitcoin and blockchain. Bitcoin has proven itself as an established currency. Blockchain, more fundamentally, will become the default global standard distributed ledger for financial transactions."
Read the full article here

Blockchains: The great chain of being sure about things

The (Blockchain) technology behind bitcoin lets people who do not know or trust each other build a dependable ledger. This has implications far beyond the bitcoin cryptocurrency.
"The blockchain began life in the mind of Satoshi Nakamoto, the brilliant, pseudonymous and so far unidentified creator of bitcoin—a “purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash”, as he put it in a paper published in 2008. To work as cash, bitcoin had to be able to change hands without being diverted into the wrong account and to be incapable of being spent twice by the same person. To fulfil Mr Nakamoto’s dream of a decentralised system the avoidance of such abuses had to be achieved without recourse to any trusted third party, such as the banks which stand behind conventional payment systems.

It is the blockchain that replaces this trusted third party. A database that contains the payment history of every bitcoin in circulation, the blockchain provides proof of who owns what at any given juncture. This distributed ledger is replicated on thousands of computers—bitcoin’s “nodes”—around the world and is publicly available. But for all its openness it is also trustworthy and secure. This is guaranteed by the mixture of mathematical subtlety and computational brute force built into its “consensus mechanism”—the process by which the nodes agree on how to update the blockchain in the light of bitcoin transfers from one person to another."

"...a world with record-keeping mathematically immune to manipulation would have many benefits. If blockchains have a fundamental paradox, it is this: by offering a way of setting the past and present in cryptographic stone, they could make the future a very different place."

Read the full article in the Economist here
Leader article: The promise of the blockchain -The trust machine

A Brief Introduction to Smart Contracts

A Brief Introduction to Smart Contracts
By Charles Hoskinson
YouTube video presentation here

Why and How Banks should embrace Blockchain Tech

"A recent flurry of media reports and surveys have touted that some banking and financial services sector players are undertaking interesting projects with blockchains and decentralized ledgers in particular. But this burst of activity is hardly enough to prematurely claim victory on behalf of the few banks who have publicized such initiatives.

It is naive to assume that the blockchain will make the most impact where it is to be adopted early. Rather, it will make the most impact where change is hardest to achieve, and that might take a little longer, realistically.

The blockchain and its derivative technologies are one of the biggest opportunities for reengineering financial services. It’s a looming tsunami, and the big question is whether the banks will fail to reinvent themselves as they did with the Internet, or if they will dare to induce a self-inflicted shake-up and embrace the future."

"The blockchain is not perfect, but it is that perfect catalyst for business process changes, and this type of opportunity doesn’t present itself that often. The last time it came was with the Internet. Let’s hope the banks see this as a big opportunity for change, not just a small one."

Read the 3 full articles by William Mougayar:
1.  Bitcoin: Another Banking Headache
2.  Dear Big Bank CEO, Re: Blockchains: Obliterate don't Automate
     (Also: Coindesk edited version) 
3.  The 8 Steps to becoming a Bitcoin-Savvy Bank

Blockchain in the Banking Industry - Bloomberg Markets Most Influential Summit 2015 London

Here is a video of the panel speaking on:
"The Future of Finance: Blockchain in the Banking Industry"
at Bloomberg Markets, Most Influential Summit 2015, London. 

The panel of speakers were:
Jon Matonis (Bitcoin Foundation), Richard Brown (R3 CEV), Oliver Bussmann. UBS), and Daniel Marovitz (Earthport); the moderator was Ed Robinson who is a senior writer with Bloomberg Markets.

The panel discussed the opportunities and challenges of the blockchain – the code behind bitcoin – and it's potential impact on the banking and financial services industry.

After 32 mins, listen to a key Blockchain/blockchain question posited by Michael Parsons @BlockchainABC @BitcoinByte and expertly answered by @jonmatonis
Video here:
Future of Finance: Blockchain in the Banking Industry- Bloomberg Business

Private blockchains are not “just” shared databases

To state that a private blockchain is just a shared database is like saying that HTML and HTTP are “just” distributed hypertext. It’s wrong in two ways. First, the semantic one: private blockchains are a technology that enables shared databases, like pens enable writing and HTML/HTTP enable distributed hypertext. The bitcoin blockchain and its primary application cannot be meaningfully separated, because one could not exist without the other. But this equivalence does not apply to private blockchains at all.

Yes, private blockchains are just a way to share a database. But they enable a new type of shared database, with huge implications for the financial world and beyond.

Read the full article by Dr Gideon Greenspan to find out exactly why

Blockchains and Banks

There’s a conundrum concerning blockchains: Bitcoin bundled together various existing technologies in a unique fashion to create something genuinely new — an almost unhackable, replicated database with no master server, via updates which are based on quickly verifiable effort rather than permission. Blockchains (permissioned chains) remove the genuinely new bit, but they are the current focus of activity in the Financial Services sector. Why?

Bitcoin created an awareness of a mechanism that could conceivably disrupt both banks and existing banking infrastructure providers via a financial network without either middle men or trusted entities. This created the incentive for strategic investment to look into blockchain applications. These replace banking infrastructure providers with software that doesn’t need to be run by a separate entity (e.g. SWIFT), and lower internal costs but still keep the requirement for trusted entities (banks themselves).

What blockchains achieve could have been done before, albeit in a less elegant way, but there wasn’t the alignment of incentives to produce the applications that will create a de facto reality.
Even without the advantages of the Bitcoin (Blockchain) approach, this will stimulate the creation of Internet era banking infrastructure. With them, we could see the web of money and, more generally, any kind of contract.

Now, internet era Banking Technology has found its best ‘Ecosystem fit’ in the form of blockchains.

Read the full article By David Galbraith
Link Here 

Blockchain Design is Academic Work?

Blockchain design is academic work and shouldn't just be decided by banks, suggests Dr Gideon Greenspan, who is the founder of Coin Sciences and MultiChain.  Dr Greenspan believes that the fundamentals of blockchain design constitutes "academic work" and is probably not something that should just be decided by banks alone. 

He continues; "...rather, I think this is work that should be done by experienced computer scientists and system architects, wherever they might happen to be."

Read the full article here

Blockchain in an Investment Bank

What does blockchain technology mean for an investment bank?

"Blockchain is a disruptive technology platform that uses cryptography and a distributed messaging protocol to create a shared ledger between trading counterparties. The idea is to allow for a simple transfer of asset ownership or more complex transactions using “smart contracts" 

Blockchain technology was originally leveraged by cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin being the first and most successful) whose popularity gave
rise to the idea of Blockchains as a means of building consensus. To that end, there are many functions within capital markets and other industries which can be simplified and enhanced by the order and validation in a distributed ledger via Blockchains."

Source: Read full article from Accenture here

Distributed Ledgers

Distributed ledgers

The Blockchain is just one type of public, permissionless, proof-of-work, peer-to-peer distributed ledger. Distributed ledgers are probably the future of financial services. 

Consider this statement from the Bank of England (2014 Quarterly Bulletin Q3): “Although the monetary aspects of digital currencies have attracted considerable attention, the distributed ledger underlying their payment systems is a significant innovation. The potential impact of the distributed ledger may be much broader than on payment systems alone. The majority of financial assets — such as loans, bonds, stocks and derivatives — now exist only in electronic form, meaning that the financial system itself is already simply a set of digital records.”

Concepts of trust arise in many philosophical puzzles. Mutual distributed ledgers look like becoming the system of trust in shared economies. If mutual distributed ledgers displace trusted third parties, they will change the systems outside them, most notably today’s financial services.

Read the full article by Professor Michael Mainelli: Unblock the Shared Economy

Blockchains Without Tokens

Is there any value in a Blockchain without a cryptocurrency (token)? 
And can these “tokenless shared ledgers” be called blockchains at all?

Dr Gideon Greenspan, of Coinspark - Coin Sciences Ltd, explains and debates the issue:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ending-bitcoin-vs-blockchain-debate-gideon-greenspan

What are Colored Coins?

Colored Coins: 

Due to the nature of the Bitcoin blockchain, bitcoins are not inherently fungible: every single coin mined can be uniquely identified and its entire history tracked. The smallest identifiable, indivisible, unit is known as a “satoshi.” A single “bitcoin” is a collection of 100,000,000 satoshis; thus the price of a satoshi is very low: about $0.0000026 at current market rates.

This lack of fungibility, though potentially problematic, opens the door to the implementation of ledgers on top of the Bitcoin ledger. If several parties agree to attach meaning to a particular satoshi and to recognize its control as representative of the ownership of some other asset — potentially existing outside of the blockchain — then they can use the decentralized consensus offered by the Bitcoin blockchain to track ownership of the asset and permit secure transactions. The antecedent is crucial. The asset can only be tracked on the blockchain insofar as its physical custodians, or the relevant authorities, agree to recognize the legitimacy of the colored coin. The mere technological ability to track an asset, from common stocks to parcels of land, does not magically translate into the ability to form an authoritative record of ownership. All too often is that obvious fact sacrificed upon the altar of hype.

Assuming such an agreement is in place, these tiny, identifiable, pieces of bitcoin can be used to represent and track assets. Such a coin is known as a “colored coin.” In addition to the ownership tracking abilities inherited from the Bitcoin blockchain, small amounts of data can be embedded in the blockchain, allowing for potentially more complex mechanisms.

Read the full article by ArthurB:
"Making Sense of Colored Coins"

Blockchain Technology Will Transform the Practice of Law

The blockchain will not replace the need for lawyers. It will, however, change how lawyers approach contract drafting, administration and enforcement among other aspects of the practice.

In the future, transactional lawyers may draft contracts that resemble how developers code software applications. In fact, future lawyers will likely need basic-to-intermediate training in coding in order to implement smart contracts based on the blockchain — a phenomenon that is already taking hold in the general population. In addition, lawyers will need to understand the intricacies of how these systems work in order to counsel clients on potential pitfalls and best practices in utilizing these systems for their business. Countries, like Honduras, have already committed to replacing their existing real estate records with blockchain technology — which one day could allow for its citizens to sell or buy a house via an iPhone app.

This (blockchain technology) has significant implications for lawyers and the business of law. Ultimately, however, this technology offers a great opportunity for those firms who can innovate. Those firms that are willing to adapt and embrace this technology will be able to provide more effective and efficient services, which will lead to a competitive advantage over those firms who do not evolve.

By Joe Dewey, Partner, and Shawn Amuial, Associate, Attorneys at Holland & Knight

Read the full article here

Banks and Exchanges Turn to Blockchain

The Blockchain — the technology that underpins bitcoin — has been called “the future for financial services infrastructure”. Now banks, clearing houses and exchanges are becoming increasingly excited at the prospect of blockchain fundamentally transforming their business models.

Banks and exchanges see a ledger updated in minutes as saving millions in collateral and settlement costs to third parties.

“Blockchain technology continues to redefine not only how the exchange sector operates, but the global financial economy as a whole,” says Bob Greifeld, chief executive of Nasdaq.

Read the full article published by the FT here:

http://tinyurl.com/BlockchainBanks

Comment:
The Blockchain and its derivative technologies are one of the biggest opportunities in the last 30 years to re-engineer banks and financial services. The key question is whether the banks will fail to reinvent themselves as they did with the Internet, or if they will dare to induce a self-inflicted shake-up and embrace a "Blockchain Banking" technological future with significantly lower costs, less friction and faster settlement and clearing times. 

FT Explainer: 

At present, when one bank sends money to another, no physical currency changes hands. Banks and settlement systems use central electronic ledgers to track assets. But they can be slow and inefficient, often relying on faxes or manual input. That not only wastes time but racks up fees. The system is also open to hacking and fraud.

Proponents say a ledger updated in minutes could savemillions in collateral and settlement costs, while also automating banks’ creaky and expensive back office systems. Collateral could also be moved around the system faster, to meet new rules on derivatives markets implemented after the financial crisis.

Full article here:

The blockchain and financial markets 

————————————————————

Interview with Gideon Greenspan
"Crucially, banks want permissioned ledgers so they can say who can connect to the network, who can send, who can receive and who can confirm transactions."

"While the bitcoin network expends vast amounts of collected computation power to prevent a 51% attack, private blockchains can employ simple but effective security enhancing techniques such as forced rotation mining patterns.

Greenspan explained: "If there are ten permitted miners (Ed: ie. validators) we could insist that at least eight of them mine in rotation."

Full article from IB Times:

What do banks want from blockchains?