Kaidi Ruusalepp

The Rise of Blockchain: How To Trust Strangers

Adam Burden, Cory Johnson, Tianmin Liu, Sopnendu Mohanty, Kaidi Ruusalepp

Moderated by Adam Burden, a panel featuring experts from Ripple, Iki Finn, Funderbeam, and the Monetary Authority of Singapore defined blockchain's shift from theoretical trust mechanisms to production use cases that cut settlement times from days to minutes. The discussion detailed specific implementations where Ripple streamlines cross-border payments, Iki Finn traces agricultural supply chains, and Singapore's Project Ubin tests tokenized currency, while highlighting that high-volume transaction integrity remains a technical hurdle. Experts concluded that while the technology offers significant efficiency gains for financial services, supply chains, and government, its widespread adoption depends on resolving regulatory friction and ensuring that governance structures can evolve alongside the code.