Just last fall, IBM released its white paper for ADEPT, it's protocol for IoT. Not long after, at CES IBM debuted this protocol with its first connected home device prototype: a washing machine that could order soap for itself--not exactly a compelling product, though certainly a proof of concept. Then two weeks ago, news came out that IBM, possibly with Intel, we're making a bitcoin/payments alternative play--a move that really got the attention of many Ethereum and Ripple enthusiasts. So if it weren't already obvious just how serious IBM was taking the Blockchain and distributed ledger technology, we now have a dollar figure--one that entirely dwarfs the worldwide investment in thisbspace hitherto.

One point worth pondering is the fact that with the inevitability of DACs and DAOs--decentralized autonomous corporations and organizations, respectively--the distinction between ledgers in financial services and IoT become very blurry. In other words, these programs are simultaneously semi-independent economic actors that both interact with the real world and are encoded into the protocols themselves. That means before long, one will not be able to think about one without the other.