Blockchain residue

Will resiliency be the residue of the blockchain hype cycle?

It’s been a while since I last wrote and, like all of you during this COVID-19 pandemic, I am experiencing the daily roller coaster ride of news, events and emotions. The experience to date is clearly demonstrating the need for resiliency in both people and the systems that we rely upon.

As someone who has lived thru multiple hype cycles including the internet bubble, the service-oriented architecture and the cloud eras, a lesson that I’ve taken away is that at the end of each hype cycle, there is some valuable residue that remains which fundamentally changes how we design and build software.

The internet bubble gave us commercial online transactions, the SOA era taught us how to build composable services, and the cloud taught us how to externalize and outsource non-core capabilities. However, the one area that has not changed by any meaningful degree is how we build distributed solutions that can continue to operate under duress.

My interest in the globally visible bright and shiny object that is blockchain and distributed ledger technologies is entirely because of my sense (and more than a bit of hope) that once the hype cycle of blockchain subsides, what will remain as the residue will be the architecture, tools and designs to build software solutions that remain resilient to disruption while operating under duress.

I remain hopeful that even though we are going thru a challenging time right now, with many of our connected systems experiencing breakage, we will come out of this situation wiser, stronger, and with an increased desire and an accelerated timeline for enhancing our systems to be resilient.

A helping hand

• The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Paycheck Protection Program provides loans up to $10 million that may be forgiven if all employees are kept on payroll for eight weeks.

• The SBA is supporting small businesses with working capital of up to $2 million through Economic Injury Disaster Loans and loan advances of up to $10,000.

• More details at the SBA Coronavirus Relief Options website.

cyberLinks: random and relevant

• National Science Foundation (NSF) Request for Information on Future Topics for the NSF Convergence Accelerator and Call for Future Topics Conference Proposals

• eSSIF-Lab has EU Research and Innovation funding available (webinar) for European self-sovereign identity infrastructure and business use cases