Blockchain Babel: The Crypto Craze and the Challenge to Business

  • 3h 29m
  • Igor Pejic
  • Kogan Page
  • 2019

Blockchain is the technology behind bitcoin and other crypto-currencies. According to Santander, it could save financial institutions $15-20bn a year from 2022 onward. Most experts see an unprecedented potential, but many banks, payment processors and credit card companies fret that bitcoin entrepreneurs could cast a pall over their core business. Whatever the position of blockchain, many voices are shouting from different angles, creating a cacophony of confusion including tech-evangelists, anarcho-libertarians, and industry experts. But while everybody in IT and banking seems to have an opinion on the blockchain, there is little systematic research, no strategic analysis. Blockchain Babel is the ultimate guide to the most disruptive technology to have entered the finance industry in recent years.

Blockchain Babel looks at blockchain alongside innovation diffusion, competitive dynamics and management strategy. Shortlisted as one of the three best business book proposals by McKinsey and the Financial Times for the Bracken Bower Prize in 2016, this is a must-read for business leaders and aspiring leaders wanting to grasp blockchain and put it into context and understand the practical implications it may have.

About the Author

Igor Pejic is the Head of Marketing at BNP Paribas PF AT, part of Europe's largest banking group. A former business journalist, the author regularly comments on payments, transactions and the blockchain in the media. He was voted by McKinsey and The Financial Times as one of three finalists in the Bracken Bower Prize with his work on blockchain in 2016, which has resulted in this book.

In this Book

  • Blockchain, Bitcoin and Distributed Ledgers – Disentangling the Hype
  • A Libertarian Fantasy in the Most Regulated of Industries
  • The Dreaded Kodak Moment that will Never Happen – Why Banking is Different
  • Data Behemoths are Coming
  • Hunting for the New Competitive Advantage
  • Business-Model Evolution – The arrival of the IT paradigm
  • An Unparalleled Promise… for Some