How Deloitte's Rubix platform will use blockchain technology

     Earlier this year “Big Four” professional services firm Deloitte made headlines when it revealed that it had become the latest long-standing mainstream brand to take an interest in blockchain technology.

   However, perhaps it is this fact that sets Deloitte apart from its peers as it works to help clients, including mainstream financial institutions, launch pilots and proofs of concept for emerging technologies.

     To better understand Deloitte’s approach to this new market, CoinDesk spoke with Iliana Oris Valiente, business development manager and co-founder of Rubix, a “one-stop blockchain software platform” service. Oris Valiente said the platform was launched after about a year of development, and Deloitte now has the ability to build blockchain technology to help corporate clients, which she sees as the beginning of realizing future possibilities.

Oris Valiente told CoinDesk:

     “Often clients will have their agenda based on their industry and their goals and needs. We match that with what we know about the technology and how we think it will impact their business, not necessarily their traditional business today but potentially two or three years down the road.”

     Oris Valiente said the main driver of interest in the service is the desire for financial service providers to determine how to mature the technology to enable them to develop the best forward-looking business strategies available today.

Crowded field

     Deloitte isn’t the only company trying to serve this market, though; its competitors in the space include tech giants like Microsoft and accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, both of which have launched similar initiatives. Given this environment, Oris Valiente was cautious not to reveal details about current projects, but she did hint at some of the work the firm is doing now.

     For example, Oris Valiente told CoinDesk that her team is currently working with clients to build a prototype in the healthcare space that would be able to disburse funds.

     “The expectation from clients is that these proofs of concept will serve as a prompt or signal to the rest of the organization that the technology is currently capable of supporting,” she said. She added that other possible areas of focus would be looking at applications in the loyalty space and supply chain, two areas where automation could potentially change existing business practices.

     “One area where I think this technology is going to have a significant impact is in identifying automated processes … by providing a transparent public ledger, if you can drive efficiencies in existing processes, then this technology has a very clear value proposition,” she said.

Multi-protocol

     Perhaps most notably, Rubix provides its clients with access to multiple distributed consensus platforms.

     According to Oris Valiente, most of the work on the Rubix platform to date has focused on the Ethereum protocol, which she believes enterprise clients are particularly interested in the features it offers.

     Ethereum was launched in 2014 and, like Bitcoin, is an open public blockchain, but because it includes a Turing-complete scripting language, it is designed to enable new types of distributed applications to emerge. Many people in the financial sector have tried to use both the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains in an effort to understand the distributed financial technology stack.

     “Often when people refer to the capabilities of blockchain technology, they’re referring to what they’ve been able to build, and they’re not aware of Ethereum itself,” she said.

     Oris Valiente said a key advantage of the Ethereum protocol is that its clients can use it to ensure that the products being built can be interconnected with a variety of other platforms.

     “Ultimately, our team’s mission is to deliver the best solutions for our clients, and if a client comes to us and provides a use case that can be perfectly built on the bitcoin blockchain, I think we’d love it,” she said.

The value of Bitcoin

     Oris Valiente also cited interest from mainstream financial providers in private or permissioned blockchains.

     Along the way, she was quick to point out that their efforts could be problematic. For example, many large financial institutions have expressed their willingness to retain Bitcoin as a digital currency, while the projects they implement do not require the use of or restrict access to similar digital tokens.

     However, Oris Valiente pointed out that the existence of tokens is necessary to maintain a distributed ledger system. “You can’t have a blockchain without tokens,” she explained.

Oris Valiente further stated that she believes that digital currencies have great potential to succeed in the future:

     “I think there is promise in digital currencies, especially the concept of state-backed currencies, or as a currency option for people in emerging markets who don’t have bank accounts, to have access to the financial sector.”

     She added that she believes there are many hurdles to overcome if any digital currency is to achieve mainstream adoption in developed markets. “Will virtual currencies become dominant in established markets? Probably not because of the lack of accessible tools and the barriers for people to understand the technology,” she added.

New Market

     With this in mind, Oris Valiente said clients are looking to blockchain technology as a way to build new products in emerging markets that were previously impossible to create and distribute. She said a good example of this is in the insurance industry, where the technology can be used as a way to eliminate the need for a trust relationship between consumers and insurance companies.

     “If all of a sudden you start thinking about blockchain technology as an enabler for something like a peer-to-peer insurance platform in emerging markets … then you’ve just created a new product that brings value to the entire community and moves towards financial inclusion issues and poverty alleviation,” she said.

     But how far are we from such an application?

     Oris Valiente said she believes the shift is likely to happen once the industry moves beyond the initial exploration phase and begins consolidation.

“Once you start to see these little Lego blocks come together as an integrated network, that’s when you start to see some really meaningful impacts,” she said, concluding:

“But it will definitely take a few years to accomplish.”