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2020 was a year of reckoning for distributed ledger technology (DLT; aka blockchain). The pandemic has amplified the trends already underway. More realistic and pragmatic approaches to blockchain initiatives have been on the agenda for some time as, increasingly, budgets for pure R&D projects, managed separately from the business, were becoming increasingly difficult to obtain.
Enter COVID-19 and the picture changed quickly. Budgets for purely experimental and speculative projects have been cut this year. Long-term strategic projects, especially those that require changes in the market structure or regulatory changes, are currently working mostly on extended hours.
Conversely, projects with obvious benefits are not only continuing, but doing so at a faster pace; there has also been an increase in the number of companies interested in participating in networks that help address some of the supply chain problems that the pandemic has highlighted.
For 2021, Forrester predicts that:
- Globally, 30% of projects will go into production. This number reflects not only the more realistic approach to projects we have noticed and the growing maturity of the technology, but also the acceleration induced by the pandemic and the initiation of projects that bring measurable benefits in a short amount of time. Most networks moving from pilot to production will run on enterprise blockchain platforms.
- Authorized blockchains will remain on the agenda. As many business tech leaders have become increasingly open to exploring the role public blockchains could play in a long-term business context, decentralized finance (DeFi)-generated headlines over the summer put the lid back on the discussion. The reassociation of public blockchains with the wilder aspects of crypto assets is frightening compliance and risk-conscious business leaders, making it difficult for even the most hardcore advocates on the tech side to maintain or pick up on the subject.
- China will make the fastest progress. China’s national “new infrastructure” initiative makes blockchain an integral part of the country’s digital infrastructure. In 2021, the Chinese government will invest in most provinces across all verticals, and we will see a steady stream of systems going into production. China’s ambitions to provide a global public infrastructure via its global network of Blockchain services will not advance much in the current geopolitical climate. The European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI) is equally bold in its mission. Complicated procurement processes and conflicting interests, however, mean that EBSI will see some incremental progress in the form of pilot projects but without major breakthroughs.
You can download Forrester’s free eBook on predictions for 2021Here.
This post was written by VP and Principal Analyst Martha Bennett, and originally appeared Here.
