Expert Jack Shaw Unpacks Blockchain’s Potential Beyond Crypto
Jack Shaw is a globally recognized technology futurist, digital strategist, and one of the world’s leading blockchain speakers. As Executive Director of the American Blockchain Council, he has spent decades helping Fortune 500 companies navigate emerging technologies — from artificial intelligence to Web3 — with an eye toward competitive advantage, operational agility, and digital trust.
With over 30 years of experience advising global brands on enterprise innovation, Jack’s work sits at the intersection of business transformation and technology. He has led major initiatives in fintech, supply chain, and data analytics, and his deep understanding of blockchain infrastructure has made him a key voice in the evolution of decentralized finance (DeFi) and tokenization.
In this exclusive interview with The Champions Speakers Agency, Jack breaks down the real-world utility of blockchain beyond cryptocurrency — exploring its impact on supply chain transparency, fraud prevention, and secure data management. He also shares insights on misinformation, smart contracts, and how AI, IoT, and blockchain can together reshape the digital economy.
Q: Beyond its foundational role in cryptocurrencies, how do you assess the broader business and societal potential of blockchain technology today—and what use cases do you believe will drive its most significant value in the coming years?
Jack Shaw: “Cryptocurrencies are just the tip of the iceberg of potential applications of blockchain technology. Because pretty quickly after Bitcoin emerged in the early 2010s, people looking at that underlying technology said, “You know, the real key to what blockchain is doing here is it’s providing a shared version of the truth to multiple people.”
“There are a lot of problems we have in business and society that this underlying technology could help us solve that have nothing to do with cryptocurrencies facilitating financial transactions. Let me give you a couple of examples. One is in supply chain management for manufacturers, distributors, retailers and so forth. And the other example is in the news.
“So, let’s take the first example. One of the problems in supply chain management that has been there ever since there have been supply chains—which date back at the very least to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the early 19th century—and realistically even before that. You had manufacturers, and manufacturers bought parts from other manufacturers, and those people bought materials from either manufacturers or people who were mining materials, and so forth.
“There were multiple tiers by the time you started with the extractive industries, went through various levels of manufacturing and distribution and retailing, and they finally would get into the hands of end-user individuals or organisations. And the problem is you never knew—it would be very difficult to know—whether your manufacturer, who’s your immediate supplier, is going to suddenly not be able to fulfil their orders because some parts and materials that they depended on are not being fulfilled by their suppliers. Because those suppliers, in turn, are having their operations disrupted by problems—whether it’s meteorological problems or whether it’s geopolitical problems and so forth—further up the …
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