DIY Investor Magazine
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June 2017
30
ENERGY IS THE NEXT MAJOR OPPORTUNITY FOR BLOCKCHAIN
Guy Halford-Thompson
Co-Founder and CEO
BTL Group (TSXV:BTL)
Since 2015 blockchain has been associated almost
entirely with the finance industry and more specifically,
payments. In 2016, companies started to realize the
potential for applications of blockchain tech outside of
the financial sector, but because of our synonymous
association with blockchain and money, these concepts
can be hard to grasp. The reality is in fact very simple.
Only now, in 2017, is the enormous potential of
blockchain outside the finance industry starting
to be realized. Issues always exist when keeping
track of information and blockchain can provide a
straightforward, cost effective solution.
In finance and payments, this application is very
obvious: we want to know that the transaction we are
taking part in is accurate and that the details cannot be
tampered with. If someone is sending me ten dollars, I
want to know that I am receiving ten dollars. At the same
time, I want to know that all of the required regulation
and reporting for the transaction has been performed so
that there is no way that this transfer of money can be
reneged.
The same fundamental problem exists in many markets
outside of finance. Whilst systems are already in place
to facilitate financial transactions, transfer of data and
asset ownership, much of today’s concurrent technology
is not fit for purpose. Nowhere is this truer than in the
energy market, where due to the complexity of the
transactions and the large number of companies and
subsidiaries involved, keeping track of information
accurately is very difficult.
Companies in this space are often made up of many
subsidiaries and hundreds of different departments,
through which information needs to flow. Today, most of
the information flows through traditional means such as
spreadsheets, emails and phone calls. It is also true that
use of the good old fax machine is not quite dead yet
and it still remains a fundamental part of the transfer of
information in the energy sector. These processes make
it very hard to ensure that the data remains accurate,
so reconciliation errors are costing companies vast
amounts of money every month. By putting this data
onto a blockchain, the information is always accurate,
and the reconciliation process can be fully automated.
In September of 2016 BTL was invited to participate
in EY’s startup challenge, in which energy trading
was one of the main areas being explored. During
this process BTL was able to interact directly with key
decision makers at some of the world’s largest energy
companies. The most significant use cases that were
developed out of the challenge, and the focus of BTL’s
work in the energy space today, all involve keeping a
more accurate record of information as it moves through
the company and its subsidiaries. It’s only a matter of
time before blockchain technology will have enough of
an impact on the energy sector to increase efficiencies
and reduce costly reconciliation errors.
BTL offers blockchain solutions to businesses across
multiple industries, in particular the finance, energy and
gaming sectors. BTL has built prototypes that showcase
the capabilities of its Interbit platform, a proprietary
blockchain based interbank payment network and
settlement and asset trading solution.
Interbit is an open, multi-chain, asset settlement
platform with a suite of APIs and smart contracts that
allow businesses from across the world to provide
global access to fast, secure, and auditable financial
and asset trading services. With offices in Vancouver
and Canary Wharf in London, BTL is positioning itself
as a front-runner in the blockchain ecosystem, providing
advice and knowledge to industry leaders.
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MUCH OF TODAY’S CONCURRENT TECHNOLOGY IS
NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE
