Blockchain Research Institute (BRI), the education and innovation hub founded by father-and-son tech evangelists Don and Alex Tapscott, has opened a European arm.
Announced Wednesday, Blockchain Research Institute Europe (BRIE) launches in partnership with Blockwall, an independent venture capital firm based in Frankfurt, Germany. The new BRIE think tank will bring together a gaggle of European industry leaders, academics, policymakers, entrepreneurs and researchers, according to a joint press statement.
The goal: Getting large companies through the âtrough of disillusionmentâ currently surrounding âenterprise blockchain.â
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âWe were not focused on what is typically called enterprise blockchain,â Alex Tapscott said in an interview. âI think thatâs just a misnomer.â
Instead, BRI is focused on âblockchain for enterprise,â which offers a wider canvas on which distributed technologies can play out.
âSaying âenterprise blockchainâ is like saying âenterprise internet.â Thereâs just one internet,â Tapscott said. âFrom the very beginning, we saw public protocols like Bitcoin and Ethereum as being the foundation technology that would be used by enterprises.â
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One particular area of growth: stablecoins.
âStablecoins were never part of the enterprise blockchain toolkit until recently,â he said. âFrom first-hand experience talking to banks, supply chain, shipping and logistics companies, all of them are trying to understand how the stablecoin boom is going to transform enterprise.â
Tapscott said BRIEâs aim is to recruit large European corporates to join the BRI consortium, which includes mainly U.S. member firms like FedEx, Exxon, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, IBM and Microsoft.
BRIE will be based in Frankfurt and staffed by four or five Blockwall staffers, with a view to hiring dedicated research staff going forward, Tapscott said. BRI has carried out over 150 research projects to date.
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