When you want to know the definitive answer on something, you might find yourself gravitating toward a certain part of the Internet.
Forbes.com has frequently been the go to for web surfers looking for authoritative journalism and information about industry and everything else.
Recently, Forbes decided to peer into the world of cryptocurrency and the underlying blockchain technology that has been hailed as the immutable ledger that we all need for tomorrow’s finances.
“Financial news outlet Forbes has released a list of “Blockchain’s Billion Dollar Babies,” or companies implementing blockchain technology that have minimum revenues or valuations of $1 billion, on April 16,” writes Aaron Wood in Cointelegraph today. “The list includes companies in the cryptocurrency and blockchain development spaces, in addition to traditional financial firms like banks and clearing houses, food companies, supply chain management firms and others.”
The Forbes list does include big American names – there’s Comcast, the massive telecom conglomerate, Cargill, the big food corporation and CVS Health and many more. (That’s just the “C’s”!)
But there are also many other big firms around the world, such as Siemens, Santander, BP, Anheuser-Busch and UBS, just to name a few, and also some further afield, such as a battery of Chinese and Taiwanese firms. One firm that doesn’t show up is Alibaba, the massive Asian-based e-commerce company, where top brass Jack Ma has frequently endorsed blockchain (Alibaba’s market cap is over 483 billion.)
The Forbes list shows where companies are headquartered, and how they’re using blockchain. It’s a great quick reference guide, and it can also be great for investors, too.
When you’re networking or rubbing shoulders with people who don’t understand cryptocurrency holdings or the blockchain, you often get a lot of questions. What is this for? Why would we adopt this?
The Forbes list is an excellent shorthand way to just show people how blockchain adoption works. Instead of trying to describe the nuts and bolts of the process, which goes over a lot of people’s heads, you can simply point them to the list, and they’ll see that many of their beloved corporate providers already use blockchain and have integrated it into their business operations.
That in itself is a useful tool for investors who are building their portfolio not just on financial data, but on networking principles. You want your community to know what you’re doing, and you want them to know why. The Forbes list helps with this goal, and it helps also make the idea of blockchain and cryptocurrency adoption more egalitarian – more visible at the street level.