Date: 28th December 2016

Time: 12:00 pm

Venue: IDS, Building 8, GTU, 75 Kostava Street, Tbilisi 

Event: The Evolution and Design of Future Payment Systems Format: Cross-discipline Lecture

Speaker: Andrew Thornhill

Poster © Eric Binder

Andrew Thornhill is an American businessman and FinTech pioneer residing in Georgia since 2007. He is developing in Tbilisi a clearing house for digital currencies providing wholesale trading options in an express way. The platform helps businesses quickly buy and sell cryptocurrencies utilizing a one-day standard for all transactions. Some points he made to the students about cryptocurrency and blockchain are worth remembering: Crypto and Blockchain are here to stay, and they will keep growing. Crypto does not offer some magical way to make money as an interest-bearing account but as Andrew said, Bitcoin is likely to adopt the function of a reserve cryptocurrency in the future. Concerns have been raised about the ecological impact of cryptocurrency mining. Luckily, Georgia has the potential to mine without significantly damaging the environment. Georgian hydroelectric stations produce surplus energy during warmer times of the year. This energy cannot be stored; therefore, it has to go on export. It is entirely possible to buy this energy in order to run cryptocurrency factories.