IBS Journal October 2015


Strength, silence and San Francisco


In an exclusive interview, Peter Shiau, the co-founder and CEO of San Francisco-based enterprise blockchain software company Blockstack.io, discusses his philosophical approach to business and why the technology deserves time to succeed.


by Antony Peyton ‘The impression is that bitcoin is for drug dealers and arms dealers – and a lot of that is true.


‘But that’s not the technology’s fault.


The technology can be used in other ways, and unfortunately it is more of a human failing than a technical one.’ It is a candid assessment of how bit-


coin is perceived, but Shiau is convinced that once people see the technology become part of their personal lives – they will never be apart again. With that in mind, Blockstack.io was


formed. And it is a result of a meeting of minds and an array of shared experiences. Shiau himself worked at Standard


Chartered Bank and its innovation outpost, SC Studios, in Silicon Valley. Miron Cuperman, founder and CTO, has


worked with bitcoin since 2010 and is no stranger to the technology. While working at Google as a senior software engineer he did one of his ’20 per cent projects’ on the subject. ‘I met Miron through my previous job


at Standard Chartered Bank – I was scouting technology start-ups with a particular focus on enterprise software,’ Shiau explains. The Blockstack.io team is also com-


prised of Lior Saar, co-founder and CPO, and Philip Harris a former Nasdaq executive who acts as an advisor. Shiau says the team was ‘trying to find a


way to get more’ out of bitcoin and Blockstack. io came from a number of discussions with potential customers at the end of 2014. Block- stack.io launched a private beta in May 2015. Fast forward to July and the company


entered its beta testing phase with a ‘small group of financial institutions’. Shiau is not at liberty to reveal their names, but says ‘this is something that will come out in time’.


42 © IBS Intelligence 2015 www.ibsintelligence.com The praise phase


Shiau believes blockchain’s potential has been missed and that its benefits need extolling. ‘If you understand what blockchain


is used for, it’s not that useful for a single institution to use it in isolation. ‘It really needs to have other partici-


pants to be part of that system – and that’s really what Blockstack.io was built for – to build an infrastructure that can tie togeth- er other users. This means a number of semi-trusted participants to be part of that system in the private blockchain.’ Thinking ahead to any counter- arguments,


he points out that if someone just wants to use a database – and they are only talking about internal functionality or internal accounting or auditing –the assumption is that everyone inside a corporation is fully trusted. But with the concept of bitcoin – Shiau


says everyone’s assumption is that they are not to be trusted. He also believes Blockstack.io sits in the middle of it all. ‘If a group of people want to come


together to build an application on top of a private blockchain, and they know each other, they probably have existing relation- ships that connect with each other. ‘So they’re trusted to a degree, but


they’re not completely trusted in that they are still separate entities from each other – so they exist in the category of semi-trusted. ‘So I think it makes sense for groups to


decide to come together, because that’s where the most value is going to be in this scenario.’


However, with an innate understand- ing of the demands of the media and the workings of the world, he adds ‘it’s not something you can hide for a long time’.


focus: blockchain


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