In the second edition of DQDeepTech, panelists Vivekdeep Gupta, Kaavya Prasad and Prashanth Swaminathan discussed application of blockchain in governance projects, enterprise, and medium- and long- term changes to be witnessed due to it.
Vivekdeep Gupta, Country Manager, R3, talked about how blockchain is used for supply chain needs. One big use case of enterprise blockchain identified and being used at scale has been around supply chain finance, logistics, and trade finance. Blockchain solves the information asymmetry that exists among various parties. It also solves the archaic processes, especially in trade finance. There are multiple global and local cases where blockchain has added value.
R3 runs two global networks. One is called Contour, focused on global letters of credit. The other is Marco Polo, focused on open accounts space. Domestically, there are a number of banks focused on domestic trade finance. Cycle time for processing a letter of credit in India was about 5-8 weeks. We have reduced that by 75% using blockchain-enabled technologies. Blockchain has found its sweet spot. It allows transparency and visibility for multiple parties over a single trade finance app. It also makes the lives of big corporates and SMEs much easier.
Prashanth Swaminathan, Partner and Head of Institutional Business, Woodstock Fund, said there are trends in public domain. One is convergence, where the underlying tech is consolidating. We foresee space for public blockchains to be here. With the bedrock of blockchain, there will be emerging technologies on top of it. This could be AI/ML, VR, etc. We are identifying layers of blockchain and middleware that facilitate creation of futuristic apps. Woodstock is an emerging technology investment firm, investing in early and growth stage distributed ledger technology (DLT) startups and companies.
Second theme is financialization. It is an extension of the DeFi langugge. In DeFi, over last 12-18 months, we have seen that proliferate and create lot of efficiencies. We will see lot more merging of DeFi with traditional finance. We will see supply coming into DeFi, at a global level. It will merge with demand from rea-life use cases. We will have access to supply of such liquidity. We are looking to build on these mergers, and solving real-world use cases.
Third aspect is virtualization. There is a small subset called NFTs or non-fungible tokens. They will expand bigger, into a virtual world. We will be spending lot more time in digital and virtual spaces. We will start assigning more and more value to the digital representations of physical forms, be it our avatars, and collectibles. We are identifying the right themes solving the right problems for getting to the vision over the next decade.
Regarding metaverse, appreciation for anything digital has gone through the roof in this lockdown over the last two years. E-commerce, social media, etc., have made lives easier during the lockdowns. Anything digital has been lapped up by the masses. Product market fit for digital revolution has accelerated massively over the last 18 months. The vision has shortened from 10-20-year period to 5-8 years. We will see lot of expenditures in digital space. VR sets, gaming sets, concert experiences, etc., will go through the roof over the next five years. We should see tangible metaverse developing. Facebook has the Oculus VR headset. It automatically exposes their metaverse to 3 billion people. More and more people will adopt some version of the metaverse. It will trickle down to many people adopting metaverse in decentralized world.
Kaavya Prasad, Co-founder and COO, Lumos Labs, said Telangana government has been very receptive to blockchain. They are one of the first state governments to implement blockchain in real-world solutions. They have used land registry in the state and put it on blockchain. They are looking for solutions in the public sector. They look at supply chain, healthcare, insure-tech, etc. It is secure, and they are ready to support blockchain. They are also looking at a blockchain district in Telangana. They are looking to make Telangana the blockchain hub of India. They want to bring the feel of a crypto valley in India, and get a community of startups, developers, ecosystem enablers, VCs, etc.
We run multiple outward-facing programs with Telangana government. We also try and teach about the technology and get people to look at it more seriously. The accelerators have also tried to pilot with some projects. Three starts had got together with accelerators. Several more should come on board over the coming years.
Tier 2 cities are undergoing transformation. Lumos Labs runs innovation programs. We try to get to the grassroots, and […]
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