Within the world of investing in 2017, the buzz words hitting the wires constantly are machine learning, robo advisory and artificial intelligence among others. Although the potential use of this technology is promising, the technology itself is only a marginal iteration of what already exists. Artificial intelligence is nothing new, with the underlying theory being used to solve symbolic equations, while machine learning can be traced back to neural networks or decisions trees which have been used to generate investment decisions for more than a decade. The real revolution will come from the use of blockchain technology in the financial services. Currently blockchain is associated with bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency, and its well-known speculative behavior. However, blockchain has beneficial uses beyond bitcoin and holds the promise to bring a revolution to the financial services.

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