The possibilities of blockchain technology for closing agreements
“In 2008 an anonymous person invented something revolutionary. He or she managed to get two or more people who didn't know each other and who didn't necessarily trust each other to reach a consensus on the status of a database”. This is the way Luis Cuende, CTO of Stampery defines blockchain technology.
Luis Cuende, a young man who at age 20 has already forged a spectacular curriculum for himself, outlined a series of seven predictions on digital revolutions in the Futurizz Digital Congrezz –the number- one event for digital business in Madrid.
The young expert highlighted that “the great thing about blockchain is that it's impossible to change. Basically there's a whole lot of computers providing it with their computing power, so changing something that's in the blockchain and that's been registered in the last ten minutes would cost more or less half a million dollars in machines to give you the computing power”.
Luis Cuende, together with his associates in Stampery, set out to discover how they could tap into this phenomenon. He gave the following example: “Imagine a world where you didn't have to make contracts, but you just send an e-mail saying "I'm going to send you a thousand liters of milk, they're going to reach you tomorrow, and you're going to pay me $1000". And the other person simply says "OK". If that e- mail, all those e-mails, were notarized so they constituted irrefutable proof that one person had sent those terms and the other had accepted them, we wouldn't need contracts any more”.
When Luis Cuende was only 12 he created a free software called Asturix, and he's never looked back. He's worked with leading companies like Telefónica, and in January this year he appeared on the Forbes “30 under 30” list. He's currently CTO of Stampery –a startup that certifies digital documents–, and lives in San Francisco.
Throughout our chat, Luis Cuende discussed the other issues he believes are currently fueling the digital revolution. Artificial intelligence is one.
It does the tasks we previously had to do ourselves. Now they’re automatic thanks to AI, which is much more convenient”
Another development is virtual reality. He says: “I saw it as being only good for video games, until one day I tried something incredible by a company in San Mateo. Basically what it does is to place the whole programming environment, all the code, in virtual reality. As a programmer I can see all my code, I can walk around the code –I can even touch the code–, it's amazing”.