Prediction Open · timeframe Nov 2020
Ludwin: Bitcoin will never go away as long as the internet exists
“Bitcoin is never going to go away. It will, Bitcoin will never go away. It will live on for as long as the internet lives on.”
Assertion Partly supported
Ludwin: Chinese investors buying Bitcoin to bypass capital controls caused 2015 rally
“The demand in this case is coming from the Chinese, who are anticipating a currency devaluation, which has been announced and in China, and are using Bitcoin as a means to circumvent capital controls.”
Prediction Open · timeframe Nov 2020
Ludwin: Post-trade clearing and settlement functions will disappear
“So if money moves over IP and all assets move over IP, we don't actually need as many of the clearing and settlement functions that we currently use today. Because they exist For the fact that we're just, you know, today we send digital messages, but then ther…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Ludwin: Capital market securities will be natively issued as digital assets
“What you'll see in the case of the capital markets is that securities and other financial products or assets will be issued at the outset as a digital asset”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Ludwin: Blockchain will shrink the overall size of the financial system
“I think most in general, what we envision, you know, over time is a much smaller financial system, actually, because many of the players in that in the financial ecosystem are there because they are helping to clear and settle, helping to Ensure there's no fra…”
Prediction Held up
Ludwin predicts central governments will mint currency as digital tokens
“The very long term, and this is sort of controversial, but I don't, I think some, but I don't think is, is that central governments will be minting currency this way. So we already have three different forms of a dollar bill today. We have a literally like a d…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Ludwin: Half-measure blockchain projects will fail over next 18 months
“There will be a over the next year, year and a half, a lot of people that Take half measures and they just don't get all the, they don't do it what we would consider the right way. And they won't have great results and they'll kind of be like, ah, we tried tha…”
Prediction Held up
Ludwin: Interoperable specialized networks will win over a single Bitcoin network
“I think we'll have I think the future will be many, many different networks. The Bitcoin network will be one. I think you'll have networks around prepaid and gift and loyalty. I think you'll have networks for capital markets, networks in the mobile market and …”
Opinion
Ludwin: Altcoins like Dogecoin are empirically not valuable
“Dogecoin is fun, but it's empirically not valuable.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Ludwin: Sidechains won't drive innovation in capital markets or payments
“So side chains, I think are going to be very, very powerful with respect to innovating the Bitcoin network, less so with respect to Innovating in capital markets, in payments and other areas.”
Opinion
Ludwin: Bitcoin network design is ill-suited for merchant-issued gift cards
“Bitcoin doesn't actually fit quite well there, perfectly there, because the only way to leverage the Bitcoin network for Starbucks would be to kind of hack the network and layer a Starbucks dollar into the Bitcoin network, which is an approach called a colored…”
Insight
Ludwin: Cryptographic networks replacing financial intermediaries exhibit winner-takes-most dynamics
“But you know, there, there's a notion of network effects. Winner takes most. And the same is going to be true here because ultimately the solution we're talking about is substituting intermediaries with cryptographic networks.”
Prediction Partly held up
Ludwin: First enterprise blockchain networks will launch in 2016
“You'll see the first few networks going live next year. And then I think by 2017, you'll start to see some of the first winners. In other words, you'll see that if you, by 2017, in a particular market, if you don't have a network running, then you're behind. Y…”
Assertion Contradicted
Adam Ludwin: Bitcoin was the first fully functioning digital asset
“Well, Bitcoin was the first fully functioning digital asset the world has ever seen.”
Opinion
Ludwin: Digital bearer tokens are as significant as Voice over IP
“It's as big a deal as voice over IP.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Adam Ludwin predicts financial services will adopt IP-based architecture
“So we are going to see a shift to a totally IP based internet based architecture for all sorts of financial services.”
Insight
Ludwin: Enterprise blockchain sales fail in innovation labs without CEO buy-in
“So we found that when we start in the innovation lab, it never actually gets us to the point of a decision to go do this. So we found that where the CEO invited us in at the beginning, or where we were able to get to the CEO or C-level executive early We've be…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ludwin: Financial institutions can no longer exist without a blockchain strategy
“So the notion that you don't have a blockchain strategy, if you're a financial institution now is no longer possible. You have to know what you're going to do and how, or if you don't want to do something, you better know why you're not doing something.”
Insight
Ludwin: Blockchains differ from databases by giving asset owners direct control
“So a blockchain is a database, so we shouldn't overthink it, but it's different from a traditional database in two critical ways. First of all, it's shared. So in other words, it's distributed to every participant who is participating in the network. And then …”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Ludwin: Cross-chain asset swaps will be easier than legacy data center integration
“So even if we have a world with many different networks, it won't be hard to exchange across those networks because ultimately we're talking about cryptographically issued and transferred assets. So it's going to be much easier than integrating two data center…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Ludwin: Only a few blockchain companies will survive serving financial institutions
“Like not, there will not be 50 different blockchain companies serving financial companies. Like there will be a few, and there will be a healthy amount of competition, and that's fine.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ludwin: Crypto is moving from colored coins to dedicated networks
“What we're seeing is a shift away from that approach toward building networks from the ground up that are designed for a particular asset.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Ludwin: Blockchain will unlock isolated corporate reward and loyalty points
“Well what the blockchain is going to do is unlock those And make it very fluid to move them around, to have them on your smartphone, to use them in new ways.”
Assertion Supported
Ludwin: $7B of value is transmitting on the Bitcoin network
“There's five billion or today, seven billion dollars of value transmitting on the Bitcoin network.”
