Grant Blaisdell

In a recent interview for citiesabc, Grant Blaisdell said the following about blockchain, cryptocurrencies and the impact on different industries: Artists and blockchain. Becoming an entrepreneur in the music industry is a complex task and a daily struggle. There are so many things to take care of despite the creation process itself. Trying to build a blockchain platform and introduce blockchain while being an artist myself talking about all these topics is a struggle. I am involved in various projects using blockchain in the music industry with the concert agency BIG IDEA such as a ticketing application called Tixy and a blockchain based digital label called Mr. Crypto. Both take advantage of various tokenization models. About blockchain and AML. I don’t have a regulatory background myself but have an innate capability to quickly connect the dots and comprehend related markets. To simplify the case of Coinfirm and AML, if you believe that crypto will be a part of the mass market then it will have to eventually fall under certain regulatory structures of today, most specifically AML. In the beginning, Coinfirm had a bit of backlash from influencers and companies in the space saying that what we built didn’t have any future and now some of those companies are among our global portfolio of clients. About crypto. The reality is that the value and utility of many digital assets is non-existent and if it has no value or utility it’s not only dead weight but a reputational risk on the industry. Speculation isn’t what interests me about crypto so I am more interested in using crypto and blockchain technology to provide real value and solutions to real problems and needs. Over the past few years and especially during the ICO boom the convergence of industry players trying to explore and sell blockchain-based solutions which have very little knowledge about blockchain and crypto focused people trying to sell this complex technology to industry leaders. And I don’t think that helped either as the majority of these ventures failed and further added to reputational risk. We are still in early stages and scratching the surface at applications of this technology and it has already come a very long way. About decentralization. What we saw in the early days of blockchain and crypto is the ideological sale of total decentralization and privacy etc. As we’ve seen the capital quickly centralized into whales and various entities. Centralization is just part of human nature. But I believe that blockchain can actually bring a new layer of decentralization and promote trust among all parties involved in a given transaction. In the music industry, for example, Spotify is a centralized platform that “controls” and provides trust to users and artists. What I believe is that through a blockchain platform we can still provide that needed trust by leveraging a conversation between users and artists directly and thus fostering a decentralized focused system.