A British Parliamentary panel heard evidence on cryptocurrencies and blockchain on Tuesday.
Testifying before the Treasury Select Committee, the director of a leading management think tank dismissed the potential for blockchain in finance. Interbank payments startup Ripple's current products and blockchain platforms also came under fire.
Martin Walker, director of the Center for Evidence-Based Management, dismissed blockchain technology, calling it a distracting fad with "little to nothing" to offer financial services. The Centre for Evidence Based Management is a non-profit think tank aimed at improving the quality of executive decisions.
The former product developer at blockchain consortium R3 claimed that the technologies are unlikely to solve inefficiencies in the financial sector.
According to him, holding Ripple, a currency which has seen its price drop 80 percent and then back up 100 percent in the course of the last two months, is just not credible.
He compared blockchain technology to "magic wands, pixie dust." "If 10% of what I've heard in my career had come true we would have these amazing banks that run for £1 a week."
Walker admitted that the hype around blockchain had provided a "catalyst" to get banks to reform and update unattractive parts of their business such as trade finance.
At the conclusion of the hearing, Walker advised the Committee not to "repeat the mistakes that have been made over and again of getting blinded by the word innovation, particularly relating to financial products."
The ministers at the hearing expressed confusion regarding XRP's relationship to Ripple Labs.
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