Today, large intermediaries establish trust in our economy and they control the movement, the storage, and the allocation of money and assets. The status quo, however, is rife with inefficiencies. Think about it: Billions of people today are unbanked, meaning they can't store and move value and build wealth. The problem starts with identity. Without a way to prove who these people are, these nameless people can't access financial services and are more at risk than those of us who are fortunate enough to have that access. Billions of people in the global south lack secure rights to property because land titles are patchy and incomplete, and governments are corrupt. This means no economic rights and limited upward mobility. It's a problem for enterprises too. The cost of contracting, establishing trust, and moving value have not been impacted much by the Internet's first era. Therefore, obstacles to entrepreneurship and economic growth are profound. Funding a new business means only calling a VC or local bank, limiting options for investment. Problems also arise when the incentives of managers don't align with those of business owners, creating a moral hazard, as it's called. This agency problem is responsible for many frauds and all kinds of bad behavior in our economy. In this course, we'll address these many challenges of the status quo and discuss how cryptoassets, smart contracts, new identity systems, and the new financial business models can help overcome them. How? Well, by empowering individuals, entrepreneurs, and businesses with the technology tools they need to help level the playing field, and participate in the value that they create. Transacting on blockchain can help us bring a better future that we believe is faster, fairer, and more distributed than the world that we inhabit today. Hello, my name is Don Tapscott, and I'd like to welcome you to this course, Transacting on the Blockchain. Here's a quick rundown of the topics that we're going to cover. First, we're going to do a deep dive into seven types of crypto assets, and what it means to tokenize an asset. You'll also learn about the phenomenal rise in popularity of ICOs or Initial Coin Offerings. Now as an aside, we think the term ICO is really a misnomer. These aren't necessarily coins or crypto currencies that are being offered, but rather digital assets that can represent many things, such as ownership in a company, access to a network, carbon credits, or even art. A better term would be "Token Generation Events," but because ICO is commonplace, we'll stick with that term. Then we'll teach you about smart contracts. You'll understand what they are, how they work, and why they're so important. You'll also be able to identify the four phases of a deal cycle. We're going to examine with different examples what people are doing with smart contracts and learn just how much they're benefiting from this technology. Then we're going to discuss identity. This was one of the most eye popping areas for me. Really, our understanding of our current system for establishing and managing our identities. You'll be able to describe at least five problems with this identity system, and explain the value of what we call a self-sovereign identity system. Finally, we'll be able to rethink the current financial services industry. You'll be able to describe six inefficiencies in the current financial services industry and how they can be improved with blockchain. We'll identify eight core functions of this sector and how blockchain will disrupt each one and create opportunities to improve each one. Finally, you'll be among the few who can explain triple-entry accounting on distributed ledgers. I think it's all pretty exciting. If you have no prior experience with Blockchain, I'd recommend starting with the first course, our first course, Introduction To Blockchain Technologies. Before we dive into these exciting lessons on Transacting on the Blockchain, please join me in the next video. I want to share with you some more details that are about me, my career, and to introduce my co-instructor, Alex Tapscott. We'll explain why we're so passionate about this technology.
