Over the past few years, there has been a great deal of excitement around blockchain – some warranted, and some not. As the hype dies down, the dust is settling, and the technology is moving into a “build” phase.

That is, organizations – large and small – are looking into viable use cases for the technology and deploying them. (You can find our practical framework for deciding whether blockchain is a good fit for your use case here.)

To get a pulse of where blockchain deployments stand, the World Economic Forum and Accenture Research partnered to survey 550 individuals from 13 industries, interview dozens of public and private sector leaders, and analyse 79 blockchain projects. Here are the top obstacles and challenges to getting projects off the ground:

1. Hype remainsThe technology is commonly seen as a great opportunity and transformation enabler, but unrealistic expectations remain a significant challenge. Survey respondents on average expected a 24% return on investment on their early blockchain projects, but realized only a 10% return.

On top of that, 42% of respondents expected a noticeable or significant brand improvement from simply announcing a blockchain project, with that total jumping to 87% upon delivering a blockchain project.

It is important for organizations to carefully consider whether there are other technologies or approaches to digitization that may deliver on their objectives more effectively or efficiently.

2. Moving from proof of concept to production requires stakeholder buy-inProof-of-concept projects are often led by evangelists, developed in R&D, and always in controlled environments.

Moving to production requires stakeholder buy-in and can be a real challenge. As Peter Hiom, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), explains, helping stakeholders to understand the technology and its benefits “is an ongoing process and it’s proven to be hugely valuable”.

“It’s enabled us to better understand the needs of our customers and ensure we develop functionality that will make their lives easier.” Everyone involved – from leadership to employees to partners – needs to clearly understand why blockchain is being deployed for a use case.




Image: Accenture


3. Working with others is difficult and it is hard to capture ecosystem valueChristopher G. McDaniel, President of the Institutes RiskBlock Alliance, says: “The whole point of doing blockchain is, it’s a team sport. If you’re trying to do it on your own, maybe that’s OK from a proof-of-concept standpoint, but if you ever want to get real production value, you have to join with others. Otherwise there’s no point.”

In order to ensure that proof of concepts (POCs), standards and solutions are adopted at industry scale, organizations must get better at working together to create an environment of shared values and partner up to solve additional obstacles.

David Rutter, Founder and Managing Partner of R3, says: “In the early days, it was getting everyone to understand the technology and its uses. Now it’s more like how the operational and legal construct works with the new technology.”

4. Organizations must account for complex legacy systems and technical debtSome 87% of survey respondents acknowledged that it is far more challenging to undertake the implementation of a blockchain solution as part of an existing digital transformation – especially when a substantial amount of capital has already been spent on a legacy technology.

Alternative digital solutions may offer faster returns and be more strategic in the short term, but organizations should evaluate whether blockchain provides additional benefits in the longer term.

5. Uncertainty existsPrior to embarking on a blockchain project, 59% of respondents said they had no confidence that the project would deliver a positive return on investment – and only 38% of those who have implemented the technology developed a business case prior to investing.

Many of those interviewed had doubts as to whether the technology was production-ready – “limitations on blockchain technology” and “scalability issues” were selected as the biggest challenges in adopting blockchain.

Though many technologists and service providers classify the technology as v1.0 and ready for production, skepticism remains. It is important to keep in mind that blockchain is in its early stages and there are limitations as a result.

 For example, challenges exist in fully addressing security, speed and efficiency.

Our new report, Building Value with Blockchain Technology: How to Evaluate Blockchain’s Benefits, is available here.

Steve Wozniak, co-founder of American tech giant Apple, has invested in a new blockchain-based company headquartered in Malta. Wozniak is now the co-founder of energy efficiency company Efforce, according to a report by Maltese news daily The Malta Independent on July 18.

Wozniak co-founded the company alongside Jacopo Visetti, who — according to his LinkedIn profile — works in the renewable energy and environment sector. According to this page, Visetti co-founded Efforce in January, 2018 — approximately one year and seven months ago. 

According Efforce's LinkedIn page, the company provides the first blockchain-based platform focused on investing in energy efficiency, with its stated goal “to be recognized as the first and main platform in the world for tokenized energy savings.

”As per the report, Wozniak recently spoke about Efforce at the pre-launch for the Delta Summit, which is a blockchain conference held in Malta. Wozniak reportedly spoke about how he thinks blockchain will be a great boon to decreasing the public’s environmental impact without requiring people to change their habits.

Wozniak also spoke on the local government’s pro-blockchain attitude as key to Efforce’s decision to launch in Malta.As previously reported by Cointelegraph, Wozniak also co-founded a blockchain investment project in October 2018.

He founded the venture capital fund EQUI Global to support investments in blockchain solutions.

Facebook's plan to introduce its own cryptocurrency has come under sharp criticism from many countries. The social media giant announced in June that it would roll out a new digital currency, called Libra, from 2020.

After US lawmakers grilled Facebook on its ambitious plan to create a financial ecosystem based on a digital currency, the G7 group of world's most developed economies also expressed their concerns about "Libra" on Wednesday.

The G7 bloc consists of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States."On Libra, we had a very constructive and detailed discussion with a very large and shared consensus on the need for action," a French official told the AFP news agency on condition of anonymity, after a meeting of G7 finance ministers in Paris.

"Concerns (were) expressed by all the participants about the current situation and the need to act quickly," the official added.G7 finance ministers reportedly insisted that tough regulatory problems needed to be worked out before Libra's introduction.

A G7 task force looking at cryptocurrencies like Libra would likely to include a broader range of regulators beyond the bloc, according to the Bank of Japan governor.

US Congress grills head of Facebook's cryptocurrency Libra

A cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin, is designed to decentralize control and serves as an alternative to traditional banking systems. It is a digital asset that works as a medium of exchange using strong cryptography to secure financial transactions, control the creation of additional units, and verify the transfer of assets.

Read more: Facebook's cryptocurrency plan is taking shape

Trust deficit?

Facebook's cryptocurrency plan has been met with intense skepticism, not only from data protection activists, but also from politicians and financial regulators.

Their skepticism is fueled by the fear that widespread adoption of the new digital currency by the social media giant's 2.38 billion users could upend the financial system.In recent days, US President Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have also voiced concerns about the project.

Trump tweeted last week that the new digital currency "will have little standing or dependability." Mnuchin said on Monday: "They're going to have to convince us of very high standards before they have access to the US financial system."

What is Facebook's new cryptocurrency 'Libra'?

On Tuesday, the Senate Banking Committee questioned David Marcus, Facebook's top executive overseeing the project, on issues ranging from how Libra could affect global monetary policy to how customer data will be handled.

"Facebook has demonstrated through scandal after scandal that it doesn't deserve our trust," Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown, the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, said in his opening remarks.

"We'd be crazy to give them a chance to let them experiment with people's bank accounts.

"Read more: Real Sci-Fi: Anarchists, tech utopians and digital cash

German concernsFacebook's plan has also stirred concerns in places like Germany. "The issuance of a currency does not belong in the hands of a private company because it is a core feature of a sovereign state," German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said on Tuesday.

Quoting an internal ministry document, Germany's Bild newspaper had earlier reported that the German government and central bank will look into how to prevent Libra from becoming an alternative to national currencies such as the euro.

He also warned it could serve as a "gateway for terror financing and money laundering.

"US Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and Bank of England governor Mark Carney have also spoken out against Libra.

Facebook has made headlines of late with its plans to create a cryptocurrency.

The social media company has been forced to defend the project on Capitol Hill, amid regulatory concerns around data privacy and potential illegal usage, while the G-7 has warned it poses “serious” legal risks.

It’s an experiment in monetary systems for the digital age, and has inevitably been compared to popular cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. However, many experts question whether Libra can even be called a cryptocurrency.

Other than the fact that they both come with a white paper and are referred to as cryptocurrencies, Libra and bitcoin are actually very different. Here’s a rundown of the key differences between the two.

Different technology

One of the biggest differences lies in the underlying technology behind both currencies.With bitcoin, transactions are recorded anonymously on a public ledger known as the blockchain.

It’s essentially a database maintained by a network of computers, on which transactions are secured in such a way that makes it virtually impossible to tamper with.Libra also uses a form of blockchain, or distributed ledger technology.

But unlike bitcoin, Libra’s blockchain is permissioned — at least for now — meaning that transactions can only be added to it by a group of trusted parties.That’s where the Libra Association, a Switzerland-based consortium of companies including Visa and Uber, comes in.

Each of the nonprofit organization’s members have invested a minimum of $10 million into the project.“Libra will create a centralized structure governed by an unelected ‘association’ composed exclusively of large institutions who have purchased their voting rights,” said Ido Sadeh Man, founder and president of the Saga Foundation, a cryptocurrency firm that counts J.P. Morgan Chairman Jacob Frenkel as an advisor.

It’s different to bitcoin’s network, which can be accessed and maintained by anyone with decent enough hardware and access to the internet.

“Cryptocurrencies are defined by their lack of reliance on trusted intermediaries,” Peter Van Valkenburgh, director of research at the cryptocurrency policy think-tank Coin Center, said in a recent blog post.

“We believe that Libra is not a cryptocurrency because of its use of a permissioned ledger and its reliance on a trusted issuer to hold and manage a fund of assets that back the currency.”

Different use cases

Bitcoin’s white paper describes the virtual currency as a peer-to-peer payment system, allowing people to exchange money without going through a bank.It’s commonly used today as a form of investment, with the term “HODL” being a common slang phrase in the industry to describe buying and staying invested in the cryptocurrency for the long term.

It’s frequently been referred to as “digital gold. ”Libra’s primary purpose is to be used in cross-border payments and money transfers. The currency is tied to a basket of government-backed currencies and other assets, to avoid the volatile swings often seen in cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether.

Referred to by many in the industry as a “stablecoin,” Libra is aimed at maintaining a stable value. David Marcus, the Facebook executive leading the blockchain initiative, has previously said it will work “more like a traditional currency” than a cryptocurrency.

“Bitcoin and Facebook’s Libra both represent stages in the evolution of currency but in starkly different ways,” Charles Hayter, co-founder and CEO of digital currency comparison platform CryptoCompare, told CNBC.


“Bitcoin is permissionless, fully decentralized, deflationary and volatile. Libra is permissioned, more centralized, governed by supply and demand and pegged to fiat currencies.

”What Hayter means by “governed by supply and demand” is that Facebook and its partner companies can adjust the supply to match a quantity of other assets held in reserve, effectively maintaining a stable price even when demand changes. Bitcoin on the other hand has a fixed supply.

The total number of bitcoins that will ever be minted is “hard-capped” at 21 million.“Bitcoin supply is fixed and cannot react to the market’s demand,” the Saga Foundation’s Sadeh Man said. “Libras are created or burned when one of Libra’s authorized resellers deposit or withdraw money from its reserve.”

Different regulatory questions

Facebook’s currency has taken the spotlight when it comes to talk of regulating cryptocurrencies. But some worry the company’s blockchain project could be lumped in with other digital assets by regulators.

That would be problematic given the difference between Libra and a digital currency like bitcoin. Whereas bitcoin rules out the need for financial intermediaries, Libra’s model is reliant on the entities which form the Libra Association, Coin Center’s Van Valkenburgh said.

“A system without intermediaries is a system without intermediary risk, and thus no need for regulation aimed at safeguarding against the types of risk presented by intermediaries,” he said.

The Libra Association currently consists of 28 founding members, according to the Libra white paper, and is hoping to reach 100 members by the time the currency launches.

The token is slated for launch in the first half of 2020.

Though bitcoin’s network involves so-called “miners” who record transactions, it wouldn’t make sense to regulated them as they aren’t trusted custodians of user funds, Van Valkenburgh said. Cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets on the other hand do require regulatory oversight, he added.



Facebook faces grilling in House committee hearing on LibraQuestions around how Libra would fit into existing financial regulations were raised at Wednesday’s hearing.

Facebook’s Marcus was grilled on whether Libra could be considered a financial security, which he said could not be the case. But Marcus said it could possibly be considered a commodity.

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton last year told CNBC that cryptocurrencies like bitcoin could not be viewed as securities. Cryptocurrencies are “replacements for sovereign currencies” like the dollar and the euro, he said.

Regardless, if Facebook and its partners do manage to overcome the regulatory hurdles that have accompanied Libra, the currency “will undoubtedly have an enormous impact on the global economy — possibly eclipsing that of bitcoin,” CryptoCompare’s Hayter said.

For Andy Bryant, chief operating officer of cryptocurrency exchange bitFlyer’s European business, Libra could start to convince people there are “other ways” of storing value than using fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar.

“If that’s all that Libra achieves, I think it will be a great step forward,” he said.