This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, July 26, 2016.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The most subversive part of Bitcoin may well be the underlying blockchain technology.

That's the argument from Don and Alex Tapscot, authors of the new book,

Block Chain Revolution. We spoke last month.

A few years ago, everybody seemed really excited about Bitcoin,

which was not just a virtual currency, but a ledger ledger and it had all these neat features built into it.

But blockchain seems to be the thing that a lot of financial firms are really excited about now and other groups of people who want to use sort of trustless business innovation.

So describe for the general public what is blockchain technology?

Well I'll get started this is Alex Tapskot.

We've been researching this subject for the better part of two years and have basically become convinced that

blockchain represents nothing less than the second generation of the internet.

And as a result, we think it's going to have a really powerful impact on industries like financial services,

but also on the economy as a whole, potentially on government and society.

So when you use the internet today to send or move or share information, you're not actually

sending an original, you're sending a copy.

And generally speaking, that's okay.

In fact, it's a good thing in certain situations.

It means we can share

information with people and in many respects we have a printing press for information.

When it comes to things of value like money or stocks or bonds or other financial assets, sending a copy is a really bad

idea.

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