http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/r3-connects-11-banks-distributed-ledger-using-ethereum-microsoft-azure-1539044
http://www.coindesk.com/digital-assets-50-million-blockchain-bitcoin-vc/
http://www.coinsetter.com/bitcoin-news/2015/09/01/blythe-masters-inventor-of-cds-discusses-blockchain-technology-2474
My understanding of how banks would use the blockchain is more along the lines of being able to do swaps and have it auditable without being in a single banks system.
While this is interesting and exciting ... keep in mind people use this shit to pump things to the moon. My biggest hope would be that they would find enough utility to spend enough money to support ongoing open source of blockchain research (like linux). Banks are never going to pump our altcoins to the moon.
Yes, this is my opinion too. I don't view any altcoin as serving a very legitimate market function because they aren't doing anything radically different than bitcoin. But I am also open to the idea that if an altcoin does something that is truly revolutionary, it could also serve a market function and earn a place next to bitcoin. And I simply don't understand Ethereum, all I was getting is that it had the potential to be revolutionary because of [insert hype about blockchains] and so on, and if it therefore does prove to be revolutionary and serve an important market function, the underlying cryptocurrency enabling all this future blockchain wizardry could become valuable.
But this doesn't seem likely to me at this point and with my limited understanding. I still hold the opinion that virtually all altcoins are eventually going to zero, because there's just no need for them to exist, and as they slowly depreciate over time, the ability to profit off pumping them also declines, which is the only function 99% of them serve currently. Once they lose even that, they're literally worthless.