Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang backs blockchain

Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang said that while the hype behind Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has reduced, blockchain technology still has important applications in banking and finance. However, the technology can only survive in the long-term if the crypto community builds a solid foundation of trust around it.

Yang’s comments about cryptoassets and distributed ledger technology (DLT) came during a speech he delivered at the recent Nikkei Innovation Asia Forum, held in Singapore.

“We are at a critical juncture as the hype surrounding blockchain and cryptocurrencies is falling away, and while it remains to be seen if it survives this post-hype phase, blockchain technology has important applications to banking and finance,” said Jerry Yang in the panel discussion Rising Tides of Innovation in Asia at the Nikkei Innovation Asia Forum in Singapore on Thursday.

Yang continued: “Blockchain is a natural technology for banks and trading. If you look at U.S. institutions and banks, the kind of infrastructure that is being developed has long-term implications. For the technology to succeed, the question is can there be trust built? That can open huge amounts of doors.”

Yang founded Yahoo in 1994, served as CEO from 2007 to 2009. He left Yahoo in 2012 and founded a venture capital firm called AME Cloud Ventures.

Yahoo itself is an avid contributor to open source projects, it bootstrapped one of the most influential software technologies before blockchain called Hadoop. However, blockchain is notable for its absence on its Open Source portal – https://developer.yahoo.com/opensource/.

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