3D Printing Could Be Blockchain's True Game-Changer

Michael J. Casey is chairman of CoinDesk's advisory board and a senior advisor of blockchain research at MIT's Digital Currency Initiative.

For enterprise blockchain technology, the very first to be "Going live" - to cite the theme of this year's Consensus conference.

While multiple blockchain projects worldwide are demonstrating how smart contracts, data sharing protocols and cryptographic traceability can unlock trade finance, improve risk management, streamline customs processing and boost transparency, the biggest change for global trade is yet to come.

That will be when the Internet of Things, 3D printing and other automating technologies finally free manufacturing from the constraints of geography.

Just as importantly, it will require manufacturers to adopt a more open-minded approach toward optimizing the balance between competition and collaboration and toward the role that blockchains can play in finding that.

Inevitably, these businesses are favoring permissioned blockchain systems, with the distributed ledger either managed by a single, centralized party such as a major retailer or producer or validated collectively by a consortium of those same pre-established suppliers.

Permissioned blockchains reinforce the "Clubbiness" of the shared enterprise.

If 3D-printing machines can be uniquely identified with cryptographic primitives, and if their transactions, data emissions and overall performance can be logged to a registry that's trustlessly notarized in a permissionless, open-access blockchain, then users of such a system could enjoy a very fluid onboarding process, making it much easier to respond to customer demand when it arises.

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