Is the blockchain heading for a checkpoint in 2019? – FreightWaves

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When the encryption exploded, the VCs doubled and pushed the investments in the technology with the assumption that branching into dApp would lead to a return on investment.

But trying to push the adoption of emerging technology does not do anything if there is no possibility for potential users to adopt it. This results in a lack of balance between supply and demand, which can result in a solution looking for a problem.

This comes to the problem of added value. Blockchain adds value as a system of macro or meta-of-systems, which is a level to which no one pilots. So there are many small-scale pilots, which is the smart way to pilot. But then the tests do not translate into a company scale, so it is difficult to articulate a case, based on evidence, that the blockchain can add value to the company scale.

And this comes to the test puzzle, which is not specific to enterprise applications. Even if a blockchain company has the kind of evidence that could attract more new customers, it is unlikely that the general public will be able to access it because the lack of balance in supply / demand means competition for new customers is fierce and the use of non-disclosure agreements are rampant (in order to protect both intellectual and proprietary property, and possible embarrassing failures), but we do not know why it's good or bad, it's not just out there.

And, by complicating these puzzles, the public confuses the use of the crypt blockchain in opposition to its use for strictly non-financial applications. So, when cryptographic markets become volatile, as they are now, people tend to think that the blockchain has lost its value, even if in a financial sense or in a sense of corporate platform – the public is not making this distinction. Obviously clickbait titles have a big responsibility for this, as I've learned all too well recently!

So the great collective result of all these binary problems is a large-scale bifurcation of public messaging. On the one hand, businesses and supporters of blockchain (including myself in the past) have publicly painted rosy images about the potential of the blockchain, while opponents cite all sorts of technological challenges that technology still faces and the general public does not know what to think.

In order for the blockchain to add value in a corporate platform role, any organization that adopts will need to map what it does to identify and correct any inefficiencies of the structural process. This is difficult because often an organizational culture and its business processes are symbiotic, regardless of whether there are inefficiencies or not. So tinkering with processes invariably means tinkering with culture, which individuals tend to disregard because most humans are naturally opposed to change (especially in the workplace). Man-centered design principles would support the approach to changing organizational culture through the iterative and gradual process of changing individual behavior, which is a slow and probably expensive process. This is in contrast to what most blockchain companies look for in a client, namely a quick turnaround engagement. The rise of "blockchain as a service", or BaaS, could be a sign that blockchain companies are warming up to the idea of ​​longer-term commitments, but only time will tell.

Nevertheless, important R & D projects are also underway. Oil giants BP and Shell have a blockchain project. Maersk and IBM's global shipping application and Walmart's recent requirement for fresh vegetable suppliers to take part in its IBM blockchain project are also important business initiatives that will measure large-scale effectiveness. The growth of the blockchain will see the continuation of blockchain experiments, but the discoveries could be a little further away at the horizon.

The general factors heading for 2019 are that blockchain is a "deceptive" technology that does not add value to reality until it can be piloted on a scale, and so far the results are not encouraging by themselves because pilots are not happening at scale. Moreover, from an organizational culture, people are inherently adversely to change. There is always that confused human component.

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