A wise man once told me "invest in whatever the lawyers are starting to talk about, that's where the money will be".  18 months ago very few people were talking 'blockchain', outside where it was being incorrectly used interchangeably with 'bitcoin'.

Now of course we all are - the recent InsurTech Connect conference saw the blockchain session busier than almost anything else.

Efforts such as the London Market TOM blockchain proof of concept and Z/Yen's work on the topic are working hard to define the specific insurance use cases and it is valuable to see their progress.  However, for the next year or two the topic will remain a little edgy and esoteric, and it is interesting to take a step up and consider about how it can lead to new paradigms of thinking, rather than simply something a little more efficient than a centralised insurance database.

The concept of "trustless" - different to "untrusted" - is one of these thoughts, and this brief blog post from Hogan Lovells helpful explains "trustless trust" to those who have not come across it before. (Before then covering the impact around rules/laws and smart contracts)

Interesting and thought-provoking generally; potentially game-changing if you're in a market where "face-to-face" is de rigueur because of the trust it engenders. (Mentioning no names!)