It is September, 2022 and a major change in the world of cryptocurrencies and blockchains is happening. The Ethereum blockchain is merging with the Beacon Chain. Yes, it is a big deal and here is why.

Yes, there are people and organizations sitting on large amounts of bitcoin. But their ability to use it or change it to fiat currency is getting more and more difficult. The network for storing and trading bitcoin (and other digital assets) is growing and getting more transparent. Some see it as a good thing; some as a betrayal of the promise of anonymity, privacy and decentralization.

Some of the most well-known companies in the world say they are trying to drive innovation - but are getting hung up when their technology works exactly as designed. It’s almost like the people who build technology should be thinking about strategy before they build it.

How many times have you read a news story, an article, or a post on Twitter or Facebook and were left confused? On the one hand, you wanted to believe that information was accurate. It would fit in your carefully-built narrative. At the same time, it was 'hard to believe' that something like this was possible. Also at that moment you realized that the effort to dig deeper and find out more was not the best use of your time and energy, and you left it at that.

We all know Walmart. It’s the place where even people trapped in a hostage situation will deny that they were shopping there. It’s also the largest company by revenue and by number of employees - and it has reported another successful year.Walmart is rarely mentioned as an innovator. Usually, the glory for that goes to its rival Amazon.

But Walmart has grown into a global behemoth by mastering logistics on a large scale. It has built over 10,500 locations since 1962. And it’s not stopping: while the world is focused on bitcoin and Ether and NFTs and Metaverse, Walmart decided to use the underlying blockchain technology to solve a big business problem.