Buterin Says Misapplication of Blockchain Tech Results in “Wasted Time”

Ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin has said that the misapplication of blockchain technology in some trades results in “wasted time.”

He made his sentiments clear in an interview with Quartz.

Talking at the Devcon4 blockchain conference, the Ethereum cofounder remarked that while there are a number of firms that try to set up higher benchmarks by making use of blockchain technology, he does not think the technology is applicable in every 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 pointed to cryptocurrencies and cross-border payments as industries for which blockchain tech would be most suited.

“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 said.

“They [blockchains] definitely don’t provide 100 percent guarantees of things, especially in the real world,” he remarked. Buterin also bashed the proprietary description of corporate blockchain projects from tech titans 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 referred to IBM’s blockchain for food tracking, that is geared to deliver confirmation about products’ origin, saying that while the endeaor has potential value he is skeptical of the firm’s ability to make it happen.

As for non-financial uses, Buterin explained that he likes the idea of authentication of university degrees that is being applied in Singapore. The technology allows institutions to digitally issue education certificates on a blockchain.