Dec 23, 2019 - This research explores how blockchain technologies could address the challenges of the market for life insurance. Through initiatives such as open IDL and consortia such as B3i and The Institutes RiskStream Collaborative, the insurance industry is exploring use cases where blockchain could deliver near-seamless automated processes, more secure data sharing, uniform compliance, and better fraud prevention. New business models such as peer-to-peer insurance and insurance-as-a-service will likely gain traction as insurance technology start-ups move into life insurance.

Feb 14, 2023 - In this project, our research leaders develop a method of formal analysis of the value of decentralized finance (DeFi) initiatives. Inspired by Vitalik Buterin’s writings on the intrinsic worth of projects in the crypto economy—that they must solve legitimate human problems on a macro scale—our researchers mirror the approach of Benjamin Graham and David Dodd in Security Analysis. For several different applications within the DeFi space, they identify the business metrics as well as the financial and social key performance indicators (e.g., staking yield, fees generated) that will help investors distill signals from the noise�...

Nov 10, 2017 - In this research, Park explains that transparency is a design choice. Whether the blockchain is public and permissionless, such as the Bitcoin or Ethereum blockchains, or private and permissioned, such as Ripple or Hyperledger implementations, transactions are traceable with attribution of actions to identifiers. Therefore, the technology has a native high level of transparency. Users can still protect their privacy in both private and public blockchains: some methods are procedural and involve the smart usage of the protocol, whereas others are technological and use mathematics. Park argues for public disclosure even on permissioned blockcha...

Nov 21, 2019 - Insurance is a significant industry worldwide: in 2017, total global gross written premiums tallied $4.8 trillion. In this white paper, Henry Kim and Muhammad Izhar Mehar of the Schulich School of Business offer clear guidance for evaluating potential blockchain use cases in commercial insurance. They take a “first principles” approach rooted in historical and economic perspectives and provide a more scientific framework for comparisons. It is a practical work for professionals responsible for sizing up the potential of distributed ledger technology in the insurance industry.

Jan 16, 2018 - This manifesto for change calls for a new social contract, one that redefines the relationship between individuals in society and the institutions they have created to self-govern. It looks at the four drivers of this change—the Fourth Industrial Revolution, globalization of ideas and the economy, climate change, and demographic shifts due to war, drought, and oppression. It identifies such global disruptions as structural unemployment and inequality; failing education, healthcare, and research and development; human rights violations; and a biosphere in crisis. It identifies the four core change makers—the private sector, the state, civi...

Jan 16, 2018 - This is an excerpt from a manifesto for change, which identifies such global disruptions to our social fabric as structural unemployment and inequality; failing education, healthcare, and research and development; human rights violations; and a biosphere in crisis.