| 1. Authenticating Identity and Value |
Verifiable and robust identities, cryptographically secured |
Rating agencies, consumer data analytics, marketing, retail banking, wholesale banking, payment card networks, regulators |
| 2. Moving Value—make a payment, transfer money, and purchase goods and services |
Transfer of value in very large and very small increments without intermediary will dramatically reduce cost and speed of payments |
Retail banking, wholesale banking, payment card networks, money transfer services, telecommunications, regulators |
| 3. Storing Value—currencies, commodities, and financial assets are stores of value. Safety deposit box, a savings account, or a checking account. Money market funds or Treasury bills |
Payment mechanismcombined with a reliable and safe store of value reduces need for typical financial services; bank savings and checking accounts will become obsolete |
Retail banking, brokerages, investment banking, asset management, telecommunications, regulators |
| 4. Lending Value—credit card debt, mortgages, corporate bonds, municipal bonds, government bonds, asset-backed securities, and other forms of credit |
Debt can be issued, traded, and settled on the blockchain; increases efficiency, reduces friction, improves systemic risk. Consumers can use reputation to access loans from peers; significant for the world’s unbanked and for entrepreneurs |
Wholesale, commercial, and retail banking, public finance (i.e., government finance), microlending, crowdfunding, regulators, credit rating agencies, credit score software companies |
| 5. Exchanging Value—speculating, hedging, and arbitraging. Matching orders, clearing trades, collateral management and valuation, settlement and custody |
Blockchain takes settlement times on all transactions from days and weeks to minutes and seconds. This speed and efficiency also creates opportunities for unbanked and underbanked to participate in wealth creation |
Investment, wholesale banking, foreign exchange traders, hedge funds, pension funds, retail brokerage, clearinghouses, stock, futures, commodities exchanges; commodities brokerages, central banks, regulators |
| 6. Funding and Investing in an Asset,Company, Start-up—capital appreciation, dividends, interest, rents, or some combination |
New models for peer-to-peer financing, recording of corporate actions such as dividends paid automatically through smart contracts. Titles registry to automate claims to rental income and other forms of yield |
Investment banking, venture capital, legal, audit, property management, stock exchanges, crowdfunding, regulators |
| 7. Insuring Value and Managing Risk—protect assets, homes, lives, health, business property, and business practices, derivative products |
Using reputationalsystems, insurers will better estimate actuarial risk, creating decentralized markets for insurance. More transparent derivatives |
Insurance, risk management, wholesale banking, brokerage, clearinghouses, regulators |
| 8. Accounting for Value—new corporate governance |
Distributed ledger will make audit and financial reporting real time, responsive, and transparent, will dramatically improve capacity of regulators to scrutinize financial actions within a corporation |
Audit, asset management, shareholder watchdogs, regulators |