The rise of Big Banking Blockchain

Back in the 90s, virtually every big company had its own internal “intranet”. Many still do.

An intranet was like a closed-off version of the internet, just for that company to use. Different teams had different pages and they’d update them with useful information.

The problem with intranets is they didn’t evolve. And the reason they didn’t evolve was because they were walled off from the outside world.

Think back to how the internet was in the 90s. Here, this should jog your memory:

Yes, that’s what Apple’s website used to look like. When you look at it today, it’s comical. 

But here’s the thing. Most intranets around today still look like that. 

While the internet evolved into a dynamic, responsive, intuitive creation, intranets stagnated.

About seven years ago, I worked for an investment management company based in Mayfair.

(It wasn’t as impressive as it sounds.) 

Everything about the company and its offices was almost intimidatingly professional. But not its “intranet”. No, that thing looked and functioned like the above Apple website from the 90s.

This is what happens when you shut yourself off from the world. The world moves on and you do not.

Big Banking Blockchain is winning

The reason I’m bringing this up today is because over the last few months there have been some major developments in the crypto space.

The big banks are finally embracing blockchain tech in a big way. 

The way they’re doing it is by taking public, open-source blockchain tech and remaking it in their own image.

They’re putting the “trust” back into “trustless” networks.

They’re putting the “permission” back into “permissionless” blockchains.

And they’re putting the “middleman” back into a branch of technology created to eliminate “middlemen”.

 Nothing new there, I guess.

Banks have been trying to recreate blockchain in their own image for more than half a decade.

But here’s what is new… they’re succeeding where decentralised finance (DeFi) has failed.