Bitcoin Price and Blockchain Solutions | An Interview with Simon Phipps

So we're here live in Singapore with Cointelegraph sponsored Block Show Asia. Please tell me what brought you to this show?

Well, it was very nice of the Cointelegraph team to send me a free ticket, so I didn't have anything better to do, so I thought I'd pop along.

Can I ask you just a real quick question? How do I get a free ticket?

I think that's what you need to do is you need to put your expression of interest, okay. On the front end website and then that goes on to a new piece of technology that will make that happen really quickly through a smart contract.

So we should put them on the blockchain.

That's the one.

Okay. I like this already. Let's stop fucking about. Okay, guys, let's go. Let's stop fucking about it. It's a pleasure to meet you. Can you introduce yourself to the rest of the cointelegraph world?

Sure. So I'm Simon Phipps. I'm based in Hong Kong, been in asia for about 11 years. I'm an insurance guy. I work for a company called the Digital Insurer, which is the world's large platform that curates content around new innovations in the insurance world.

Okay, so what brings you in particular to the Block Show Asia?

Yeah, well, a couple of things. Firstly, from a personal passion point of view, I sort of discovered, I guess, the potential for blockchain at a personal level three or four years ago. And I fundamentally believe that we're just entering a new period of our lives which is just going to be so much cooler as individuals as the Internet evolves to what it perhaps should have been many years ago. So at a personal level, I've got a real interest professionally insurance. I've been invested in for a long time in terms of my professional career, and I love what it stands for, but it's got some sort of problems, I guess, and they're well known to many customers. These problems are around trust. I think lots of customers around the world don't trust our sector as much as they should. The customer experience is lacking compared to a lot of what we experience in other industries like retail. And I think because the industry has been going for so long, most of the companies have got lots of legacies. They're quite inefficient. So despite the fact that the world needs insurance and we all need insurance, a lot of what is there at the moment probably needs to move on a bit quicker than it is. And I think that blockchain technology in all its forms has the Potential to really move the industry on for the benefit of customers and both insurers and their shareholders.

So we see a lot of disruption in the insurance business. You think blockchain is going to be the most disruptive technology for the insurance industry?

I think it has the potential to support the fast evolution of the insurance industry. The insurance market globally has been around for a long time. There are areas of it that are ripe for disruption. But there are quite a lot of reasons why insurance is heavily regulated and it's not the easiest of sectors to transform and disrupt with new technology. I don't think we're going to see all the big insurers sort of collapsing in the next couple of years. I think we're going to see a lot more focus of this technology, working with the existing insurance community to see how things can be done better, better for customers and better for their shareholders.

Do you think that it's going to be the old guard that will come in and create, let's say, R and D labs to approach that, or do you think it's going to be the opportunity for the new guards to come in and take a hold of these technologies and approach what I see as sharing in insurance?

So I think you're absolutely right. The answer to that is yes, I see both. You know, some of the big existing insurers are going to fall away because they won't be able to change quick enough, I think. And the history is littered with examples of big companies that have not kept pace with the market and fallen away. So if insurers aren't increasingly agile and increasing the innovative, they're going to be challenged going forward. But I think some are investing heavily already in lots of different parts of R and D. Blockchain is one, AI is another, genomics is another. And the list goes on to change what they do day to day at the moment, and also look at new ways of doing things completely for customers. So I think insurers, some will survive and thrive, others won't. The other thing I would say is there will be new entrants using this new technology that capitalise on opportunities to really exploit the future of the industry. And we all know, and I've just talked at a session on this, there are some quite interesting and attractive things looking forward to the insurance sector. You know, to list a few, the populations are aging all around Asia and.

All around the world, Right?

And this creates a need for more savings, more pensions. People are going to live longer.

Exactly.

Protection gaps are getting bigger, middle class are rising all around the world. And most importantly, I think there's a big opportunity for blockchain. There are probably 3 or 4 billion people in the world. They've just got no insurance. They don't have access to banks and they don't have access to financial protection.

Exactly.

And blockchain lends itself to getting in touch with and providing very small policies and perhaps on demand coverage so people that would otherwise not be able to access it. And this is hugely exciting.

You mentioned on demand access. That seems to be huge right now. Is that going to be the. The one area that blockchain could dominate in the insurance world?

Well, blockchain, I think, can become part of a new fabric and a new way of doing things on demand. I'm really excited about, because I joke about this, but there aren't many things we buy in our lives and stick with for 25 years, but a lot of insurance policies are still sold for 25 years or more. And that raises questions around whether what people bought is still right for them, whether it's still fair value. If you break things down, then you get rid of these concerns. The blockchain technology smart contracts should present opportunities for people to get more relevant coverage and savings at the time that is right for them in the way that's right for them. So I do think on demand is a huge, huge new thing that's coming through for existing insurers and new ones. Sort of flight delay is an obvious one. Using smart contracts taking all the pain out and automatically payments. Absolutely. Lots of little examples like that will come through the next few years. Superb.

So we talk a lot about insurance. There's a lot going on around the cointelegraph conference. What outside of insurance excites you? What industry outside of the insurance industry excites you and you think will be transformed by the application of blockchain technologies?

Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure I see one particular sector that excites me most. I just see the whole technology is just transformational for our lives personally. And, you know, it's a bit of a cliche for lots of people watching this, but, you know, we know that the Internet's been great for almost instantaneous movement of information, but it all falls down when we try and do things of value around. We buy things on ebay or Taobao and then we need to go into, you know, various third parties. It's just going to be great for us to be, I think, as consumers, feeling that we're getting things when we want them in a channel we want Them at the price that's fair for us.

Absolutely.

And I think blockchain will be one of the ways in which that happens quicker.

One more thing before we run. What's your most, and I mean embarrassing. This is only between you and me and a few million subscribers. What is your most embarrassing moment with crypto or a blockchain technology?

Well, crikey. Yeah. Okay. Well, there's only a few million. I mean, I think it's. Again, it's a bit of a cliche, really. It's just a sort of regret thing, really. I mean, I got in late to understanding this, but I did feel in my gut right at the beginning that this is going to change the world. Right. And if I look back at my personal investment strategy, it was way off. You know, I should have gone all in a couple of years ago.

I think we all. Yeah, we all missed that one. Maybe not all of us.

Yeah. So I don't really have any regrets at all. I mean, I've always been a fan. I see it as part of a bunch of a few other things that together for our industry and as customers, just going to change the world. And, you know, if there was one thing, I would probably call this one out. Fantastic. Okay.

So for our subscribers, we'd like to know, is there one ICO that you would love to see in existence right now that you have not identified?

Okay, I'll give you two examples. Right. One, I think I was interestingly chatting to someone at this conference earlier, which has been fantastic, by the way, and they're on this, but I think this is a big thing they're on and that's ensuring cryptocurrencies and our individual and maybe corporate risks around movement of decentralized sort of enabled currency and tokens. Everyone's taking it as a leap of faith and taking a personal risk at the moment. And as the value of these things increases, the risk level increases. For us, insurance is all about, you know, basically underwriting risk and here's a big and growing risk opportunity. So I think whilst the insurance sector is looking at ways in which you can deploy the technology for consumers in the traditional sense, actually crypto and people buying coins and tokens is a real hot thing right now. So there's nothing there at the moment which can ensure that risk. It would be great for all of us to accelerate adoption and drive the prices even higher at a customer level. In terms of insurance, one of the things we've seen in markets like the UK is aggregators. And these are comparison sites that show you which is the. The best value. Those were quite blunt, frankly. And they've kind of compressed the margins of insurers in the uk, been better for customers, but ultimately you're still buying annual contracts and stuff. We talked about on demand earlier. I'd love to see a future in which actually our risks are real time growth out to the market and actually we don't really touch the insurance products ourselves at all. That's all on the blockchain, knowing the carriers know who they're taking on and it's moves from carrier to carrier. Now, that's not particularly good for insurers because it's very narrowly priced, so you need a different tech stack and different way of thinking about profit. But from a customer point of view, imagine driving a car and you're not even worried about insurance. You know, you're getting the best price at any point. So in the future it won't be our car, but for the next few years that will be a cool area to focus.

All right, well, Luna, thank you so much. I hope you enjoy the balance of the show. I'm Stephen Chase and this is Cointelegraphy. Take it.

Thanks, guys.