IBM Advisor Believes Blockchain Could Kill the NHS

The already crippled state of the National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom could be hit even more as according to a recent Computing Cloud and Infrastructure Live event, an expert and senior advisor to IBM and McKinsey & Co, John Straw has predicted that blockchain tech could see the City of London made redundant. Furthermore, he claimed that it could take personal and corporate taxes with it that help fund the UK’s health service. 

Straw said:

“Let’s say that somebody actually does produce a working blockchain peer-to-peer [financial] system. It’ll be a lending system that actually scales, we won’t need banks any more. That means we’ll have no central clearing houses, and they don’t therefore pay tax. So who’s going to pay for the NHS?”

As well as being home to the Bank of England, the City of London is the nation’s primary financial district and also houses the London Stock Exchange too. PwC accountants say that taxes from the UK’s financial sector raised more than £75 billion in the fiscal year between 2017-18.

Straw added:

“The tax generated by financial services would not simply be shifted to blockchain-based alternatives. Blockchain makes transactions invisible to the taxman. That’s why France and Germany have basically banned Libra, and quite rightly so. Blockchain is a ‘democracy killer’ in many regards.”

That wasn’t all Straw had to say though. He is a strong believer in the technology in blockchain, citing Ethereum and said that their capability is endless and that the main positive to blockchain is the way they can create independent parties to design binding smart contracts.

“I believe that this is the fundamental basis of Business 5.0. Transaction capabilities within minutes, automatic remittances, no escrow and the fact of the [low] cost of doing it manually, a virtual presence in the cloud – and no lawyers necessary, which is obviously a bit of a joy. That I think is the foundation of Business 5.0 together with APIs.”

It will be interesting to see how this situation plays out. For more news on this and other crypto updates, keep it with CryptoDaily!