In their recent blockchain survey, Deloitte conducted a research between February 8 and March 4, 2019 with 1,386 senior executives from a dozen countries.
These countries include Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Luxembourg, Singapore, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and the United States.
The blockchain survey’s goal is to determine the overall attitudes and general impressions towards blockchain in 2019. It compared different perceptions on different countries towards blockchain. Unsurprisingly, it is safe to say that people are warming up to the technology. Gone are the days when people look at it as something to play with. Most companies are diving into deep research for blockchain integration rather than mere speculation. Throughout this excerpt, we will highlight the important points including some graphs or figures that give the overall impression of those who took the survey.
Blockchain Survey Highlights
Multiple million dollar companies are really looking into the blockchain. The peaked interest over the past year has garnered increased action from most companies. Deloitte has mentioned that over 53% of survey takers have placed blockchain on their priority list—whether it’s integration, system revamp, security, or asset digitalization. In 2019 alone, over $5 million USD were invested into blockchain, a 40% increase from 2018.
Blockchain is experiencing a shift in perspective which reflects a positive note. What Deloitte describes as “blockchain tourism” in previous considerations is now turning into blockchain exploration towards business applications. They reported that the financial technology sector is leading the blockchain charge. Other industries concerned are technology, health care, life sciences, and telecommunications.
The increased investment towards blockchain came from matured perceptions of the technology. The previous thought of blockchain as an immutable ledger evolved into a series of different pragmatics from security to assets. Along with that, the increasing development of various blockchain technology applications resulted into multitude fields of research and implementation that blockchain only waded into the previous year.
What the Blockchain Survey Detailed—Holding Up to the Hype?
Deloitte pointed out that most innovations barely lived up to the hype from public expectations. Blockchain is experiencing the same thing. The never ending perception of blockchain as the disruptive tech is far from blockchain’s true potential. As its slowly being tapped into in recent developments, result yielded differ from what is expected. Nevertheless, the survey showed only 13% responded to decreasing investments in the next 12 months. This clearly means that long-term integration is being looked into instead of hoping to make a quick buck.
The Search for More Blockchain Uses
The biggest liaison of blockchain enthusiasm is the popularity of Bitcoin. Most people and most companies have heard of blockchain technology because of the said cryptocurrency. And crypto mostly drives these companies to look into the technology. However, as companies step into the possibilities of blockchain, more and more people have come to realize that blockchain has more use the previously thought.
These uses encompass more than just coins and tokens. Companies are reported to make use of blockchain through loyalty programs, increase security of systems and assets, digitalization of physical assets, and creating virtual wallets for accounting and asset protection. And applications are being developed to look into it. According to the survey, the ease of use and increased speed is their biggest driver to implement blockchain technology.
Outside of financial technology, blockchain is also seeing some traction with other industries looking for better use of the technology and developing ways to incorporate it into their company. This shifted industry focus of what blockchain is and what it can do to how can business take advantage of blockchain.
Consulting leader Linda Pawczuk mentioned that questions towards blockchain are geared towards the same concept:
Blockchain integration is getting the attention it deserves from leaders who are looking for a pragmatic approach to the technology compared to before.
Blockchain Survey Takeaways: Challenges
But this doesn’t mean people haven’t been looking into the blockchain from the start. There are multiple emerging blockchain disruptors that have been functioning from the beginning—the pioneers. And these businesses are at a more advantageous position compared to most businesses. Initial blockchain developers have a more fluid, adaptable situation compared to most. And this places an enormous amount of responsibility on these companies to propagate and protect the reputation of blockchain in the mainstream.
Despite all that, the blockchain survey concluded both emerging disruptors and amateur users are approaching blockchain with caution. The biggest challenge for blockchain is a collective accepting ecosystem or a collective consortia. The survey said that 41% of companies agreed to a blockchain consortium if the objectives of adoption meet their own. Among other influences are the community and evidence that blockchain actually works. See the figure below.
In addition, most respondents agree the costs and learning are the best benefits to a consortia. Clearly, this highlights and reiterates the importance of a good, functional community to make blockchain and its networks function.
Blockchain Survey Across the Globe
Around the world, financial technology industries lead the blockchain research. Countries included are China, Singapore, Israel and the United States.
While China has regulation problems with cryptocurrency, this doesn’t mean they haven’t taken note of blockchain. China’s research and development for blockchain is ongoing as they see blockchain as the key of economic development.
Singapore took the most accepting stance with blockchain and cryptocurrency research conducted by their major industries.
But it was Israel that took the crown as the leading country for blockchain revolution. With research and development conducted for digital assets, Israel is looking deeply into blockchain integration across the globe.
The chart above shows a graph showing the different attitudes of these countries towards blockchain.
The blockchain survey talked about different government regulation as well. As seen in the image below, they highlighted data regulation, developing frameworks for blockchain, etc.
Blockchain Survey Conclusion
Blockchain is seeing a steady upscale of acceptance and integration across the globe. Indeed, blockchain started out as an avenue for digital assets and bitcoin. But now, experts are conducting more research with the possibility of bringing the technology to the general population with pragmatic use. The survey shows an increasing acceptance and more intelligent attention from industries and industry leaders. And industries are launching software development and blockchain roadmaps into action. These industries can hopefully see blockchain bloom into fruition. Although admittedly, this may still take some time.
Deloitte concluded their survey with this statement:
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