Back from the beach 🏄‍♂️ and encouraged to see the continued momentum of IBM Blockchain World Wire. I'm excited that IBM is persisting in its plans to transform international payments. It's also exciting to read that Nitin Gaur is now IBM's Blockchain head (that's new!) and that he and IBM are still long on Stellar.

IBM’s long-term commitment to its Blockchain program seemed a little wobbly after the surprising retirement of its General Manager (and my former boss), Marie Wieck. So I'm encouraged to read that the IBM Blockchain Godfather, Jerry Cuomo, is still advancing his agenda, now under the IBM Cloud banner. I wonder how IBM's blockchain-differentiated cloud will fare against Amazon's cloud-integrated blockchain strategy or the recently-announced Binance Cloud?

Nine months on the beach might have overcooked my brain, but I still think enterprise blockchain is a total waste of time and money, especially when divorced from a native financial instrument and true decentralization. But half-a-billion dollars of investment can’t be all wrong. We owe IBM a big “thank you” for getting this party started and seeding the digital asset revolution through its blockchain program.

I'm more eager than ever to see what happens next as we move through the "Trough of Disillusionment" to find legitimate blockchain and crypto use cases like BlockFi (very cool) and the Coinbase + Visa partnership revealed today. And let's not overlook the first Fintech takeover of a U.S. bank, a trend that is likely to continue— way to go Lending Club!

Are all of these signs that we might (finally) be getting close to the tipping point for Blockchain?