Federal Reserve Board Member Glenn Hutchins: Blockchain and Bitcoin are both very important

Glenn Hutchins, co-founder of Silver Lake and a member of the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, gave a keynote speech at the 2016 Consensus Conference, explaining why public blockchains such as Bitcoin still play an important role in the development of today's major bank ledgers.

Hutchins, who leads both telecom giant AT&T and U.S. stock market Nasdaq, provided a unique perspective for the roughly 1,500 attendees at the Consensus conference to examine bitcoin’s past and future prospects.

Hutchins compares Bitcoin to the Internet and private permissioned blockchains to intranets, and explains that intranets played a crucial role in the transformation of the web in the 1990s, but their impact was limited.

Hutchins said:

“Blockchain and digital currency are disconnected. The existence of blockchain is more like an intranet. The role of intranets is indeed not negligible, but their conversion value can only be reflected when all these intranets are connected on the Internet.”

Hutchins said Bitcoin is like the "box truck" of finance, and he also compared distributed ledgers to new "railroads" that promote economic development.

Hutchins also said he has bought bitcoin himself and is investing in bitcoin companies as part of upcoming Series A and B rounds. Last week, he became a board member of industry-focused VC firm Digital Currency Group.

Even with a lot of excitement about blockchain at Chain that day, Hutchins’ speech stood out as a sign that a new blockchain platform has been created with the help of Chain Financial Partners, and that Delaware is working to legalize the use of blockchain technology by its companies.