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Research Report: State of Enterprise Blockchain Study Report - Provide Technolog... (provide.services)Stacey Schneider
Summary: Small companies lead blockchain investment. 70% of overall investment originates from private companies. Projects are 40% more likely to originate from IT, while Ethereum is the foundation for the clear majority (62%). Provide Technologies, Emory University and Aprio sponsored the State of the Enterprise Blockchain Study.
The State of the Enterprise Blockchain Study indicates blockchain adoption is gathering momentum. With participants indicating a 62% increase in blockchain investment this year, blockchain expects to be mainstream technology by 2025.
Our study revealed 28% of companies are actively working on blockchain initiatives. While adoption includes activities across all organization sizes, early adopters tend to be smaller companies with less than 100 employees.
In fact, smaller companies report investing 28x more than companies with over 1000 employees.In a similar vein, private companies hold 70% of the investment in blockchain compared to public companies.
This adoption pattern resonates with previous tech adoption patterns where small businesses adopt more aggressively to gain a market lead, while large scale enterprises typically wait until successful patterns emerge. Increasingly, as best practices emerge, we will see larger scale enterprises more frequently as we edge blockchain toward mainstream technology.
Overall, the companies participating in the study indicate that investment in blockchain will increase by 62%.What is holding back blockchain adoption?
63% of respondents cite internal skills or a lack of tooling as reasons for slow adoption. Successful blockchain development requires knowledge of computer science for distributed computing, an understanding of cryptography, and typically involves a new programming language called Solidity—as well as competency of protocols and consensus algorithms.
The learning curve appears steep for businesses focused on their businesses. While tools like Remix, Truffle, Ganache and Provide help reduce that learning curve, 50% of respondents need more metrics and patterns that deliver business value to adopt.Interestingly, while strategic adoption may be held up on further evidence, developers are finding reasons to use blockchain.
Our findings indicate blockchain projects are 40% more likely to originate from IT than from the business.What are they using?
The clear majority use Ethereum. 62% base their blockchain projects on the protocol designed for developers—allowing them to put business logic on chain using smart contracts.
A respectable 42% use the Bitcoin network.Proof of Work (POW) remains the leading consensus algorithm with 42% reporting it as their preferred choice. Proof of Authority (POA) and Proof of Stake (POS) tie for second with 28%. In a distant third, Proof of Signature comes in with 12% of citing the relative newcomer as a preferred option.
The majority of the use cases underway focus on disintermediation—cutting out the middlemen—or increased efficiency. 48% confirm projects focused on business process automation, followed quickly by 46% with authentication projects. This follows the logic that 53% believe the most benefit for customers to be savings from greater operational efficiencies.About the State of the Enterprise Blockchain Study
The study sampled the current state of blockchain adoption for 82 organizations ranging in size from startups to juggernauts. The median size company employs 250 people, while the mean employs closer to 30,000. The study started began in December 2018 and concludes with this report.
Provide Technologies, Emory University and Aprio sponsored the State of the Enterprise Blockchain Study. Special thanks to Dr. Benn Konsynski and Jagruti Solanki for their help in completing this study.
Posted in News and tagged blockchain, Enterprise, Ethereum, infographic, Research← Provide and BEA Announce Partnership, Videos, Workshop and WebinarsAbout Stacey Schneider
Stacey is a technologist known for bringing early stage technology businesses to market, including ecommerce, open source, cloud computing, and most recently decentralized applications using blockchain technology.-
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Francisco Gimeno - BC Analyst We are already observing the same pattern in the blockchain development and integration in business as any other new technology in the past. After hype and disappointment, a second wave of development and interest on the side of financial institutions and groups and other enterprises, and in the next future full integration. We, however, bet that the speed of adoption will be faster than other technologies before, once the main tech hurdles are solved as everything is accelerating.- 10 1 vote
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Ethereum co-founder and ConsenSys creator Joseph Lubin said that blockchain technology and decentralization can benefit content creators and journalists. Lubin spoke about different industries that are benefitting from blockchain technology in a video on March 12.
In the video, Lubin said that artists are “set to benefit quite dramatically” from blockchain, as it allows them to attach policies and stipulations for how the content is consumed and shared i.e. derivative works, streaming, public performances, etc. In Lubin’s view, it also allows them to eliminate middlemen:“I think artists in the music industry on average capture about 11 or 12 percent of the value in the industry and those big record companies are sucking up 70 or so percent. We can replace those record companies with smart contracts on the Ethereum platform.”
Lubin continued that, while there will still be intermediaries such as promoters, they will not be able to “get to a commanding position where they’re extracting enormous rents just because of their intermediary role.
”In regard to journalism, Lubin said that blockchain-driven platforms like Civil could help the “gutted” journalism industry to deliver content directly to the consumer and “return ethics to journalism.” Lubin said that a platform like Civil allows newsrooms to form a code of ethics and stake that security bond on the platform:“If they break that pledge in some way, their readership, their listenership can call them to task, can challenge their stake and potentially have them bumped off the platform.”
Earlier this month, Civil announced its official launch, despite a lackluster initial coin offering last year. The platform — which aims to provide an alternative business model to the journalism industry — now allows participants to purchase Civil membership, including CVL tokens which will represent members’ voting power within the Civil ecosystem.-
Francisco Gimeno - BC Analyst The blockchain allow for many new ideas which radically change the way we work and interact. or media and art this is going to be very visible, as it may allow artists and content creators to own their works and art and content consumers enjoy a cheaper but good quality work. No more intermediaries where is not needed.
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Bolsa de Madrid (BME), Spain’s largest stock exchange, said it expects to go live by year-end with a blockchain-based system for certifying collateral pledges after testing the technology.
The test “has shown a reduction in the total times of end-to-end processes exceeding 80 percent,” BME said Thursday, as well as the potential to radically improve the participants’ operational and risk management.
The system allows market participants to avoid exchanging paper certificates and monitor the process in real time, the exchange said.
The proof of concept (PoC) was developed by BME’s own distributed ledger technology division DLT-Lab, in collaboration with regulators and other financial institutions, BME said, including BME subsidiary BME Clearing; the Spanish central securities depository IBERCLEAR; and investment bank Renta 4 Banco, which pledged collateral to cover customers’ positions.
“DLT technology allows us to reduce times drastically and improve the operation and control of the system, providing legal certainty for electronically generated certificates and maintaining privacy and compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation,” Berta Ares, head of digital transformation at BME, said in the press release.
Teresa Sánchez Alonso, head of IT systems at Renta 4 Banco, added that “this innovation project is aligned with the strategy of digitization, automation and continuous improvement of Renta 4 Banco’s customer service.
”This is not the first time BME has dipped its toe into the blockchain world: last summer it contributed to a joint pilot project of several Spanish banks named Fast Track Listing (FTL).
The pilot, testing blockchain tech for registering stock warrant issuances, also included institutions such as the Spanish National Securities Market Commission (CNMV), Banco Santander, BBVA, BNP Paribas, CaixaBank, Commerzbank and Société Générale.
The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.- By Admin
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Recommended: Interview with Michael Amar, Co-founder of Paris Blockchain Week (blockchainreporter.net)In advance of Paris Blockchain Week taking place from April 13-19, BlockchianReporter sat down with co-founder of the event and board member of Chain Accelerator, Michael Amar.
Paris Blockchain Week is a series of events taking place under the joint High Patronage of the French Ministry for the Economy and Finance and the Secretary of State for Digital Affairs, culminating in the Paris Blockchain Week Summit, which will be held on April 16 and 17.
It will be the first international conference that will be held in France, dedicated to professionals in the blockchain and crypto-assets space boasts of attendees such as Bruno Le Maire, French Minister of the Economy and Finance and Wei Zhou, CFO of Binance.
Last year, France slashed the tax rate for cryptocurrencies and overall, seems to have become much more supportive of the blockchain industry in recent years.
What’s changed?
France is fortunate to have very forward-looking government officials. Even our president has noted the potential of blockchain technology to provide greater transparency to existing industries.
We also have numerous members of parliament, Jean-Michel Mis, Pierre Person, and Laure de La Raudière, for instance, that are pushing forward legislation to accelerate the development and adoption of the technology.
There is a sense of urgency from these officials. They are not only recognising the potential of blockchain and cryptocurrencies, but they are also pushing for the necessary changes to foster the right ecosystem.
Outside of parliament, we also see large French companies such as grocery chain Carrefour adopt the technology. Carrefour has successfully implemented DLT to track products from their farms to their stores, reducing the risk of health hazards such as Salmonella outbreaks.
Europe, for the most part, seems to be one of the most progressive places for Blockchain. Would you say that there is greater support for cryptocurrency specifically or just blockchain?
Europe is a place that strikes the right balance between innovation and consumer protection. Initiatives such as the EU Blockchain Forum have been set up by the European Parliament to not only progress the development and adoption of blockchain and DLT, but to make sure it progresses in a way that is safe for users.
Initiatives and discussion at the European Parliament level have mostly focused on blockchain technology.
But we see parliaments in specific European countries such as Malta and Estonia pass through legislation to make their country attractive to businesses dealing with cryptocurrency. The Maltese government passed three bills into legislation last year concerning both cryptocurrencies and blockchain.
As a result, we are seeing major cryptocurrency businesses such as Binance relocating to Malta. Overall, Europe is one of the most supportive places for businesses relating to cryptocurrency and to blockchain technology.
France has announced plans to spend about €500 million on blockchain over the next three years. In terms of long-term development, do you think Blockchain needs more of funding or positive legislation?
What blockchain requires is the development talent with the skills to work on blockchain and DLT projects. At the moment, there is intense competition for developers in other technology sectors.
We are currently seeing the banking industry and venture capitalist funded projects already securing the largest share of this talent that can build on blockchain and DLT.
The funding we see from France and others such as the €340 million EU fund will help secure more of this talent with the goal of building blockchain projects for various sectors.
Regardless of funding and legislation, the pool of talent with the skills to develop projects on blockchain will remain scarce in the near-term. However, in the longer-term outlook, funding and favourable legislation will help grow the pool of talent and will also attract more developers from other technology sectors to work on blockchain projects.
Paris Blockchain Week has attracted some very powerful names to its lineup. At the same time, a member of the European Central Bank executive recently referred to Bitcoin as the evil spawn of the financial crisis. Do you think events like this help to change the minds of those in high places?
We have seen Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan, progress from labelling bitcoin a fraud to recently announcing that he plans to launch his own internal cryptocurrency built on DLT. Events such as Paris Blockchain Week help these sorts of change in mindsets take place.
These events educate executives and key enterprise players to make a difference. We hope to shine a light on what kind of benefits blockchain and DLT can offer, as well as which inefficiencies it can tackle. Let’s not give up on the European Central Bank executive just yet.
The different countries in Europe (naturally) have different policies regarding blockchain. Can the industry thrive that way or are organizations like ‘Blockchain for Europe’ needed to ensure uniformity, at least in the private sector?
Time will reveal whether different policies in different jurisdictions is the best approach for progressing development and adoption of blockchain technology. We will be delving into questions such as this at the conference and we will quickly learn which policies best suit the progression of the technology.
It certainly seems advantageous to jurisdictions such as China and Japan where unexpected changes in policy have resulted in businesses having to change location or shut down operations immediately.
Blockchain adoption in Europe is still in its early stages, and it’s still unknown what kind of long-term impact it will have on policies.
In the short-term, initiatives such as Paris Blockchain Week will facilitate further discussion regarding the technology and how it should be governed.
How has the bear market affected the progress rate of blockchain in Europe and France, specifically?
Prices are always an important point of interest for the general public, but the development of the technology continues to progress in Europe and France regardless. Prices are more of a concern to speculators than they are to the businesses and developers building on blockchain.
Projects do not need to launch their own cryptocurrency to apply blockchain or DLT; the power of blockchain lies in its real-world potential. However, the public often associates blockchain and crypto as one.
Hopefully, as more awareness is built around the capabilities of blockchain, people will see that the technology can be utilized for much more than digital currencies.Apart from investors suffering losses, bear markets can be a good thing.
They serve to get rid of some of the weaker projects from the market. Projects that started with weaker value propositions struggle to continue to fund project development and eventually have to shut down operations. Although this can cause pain in the short-term, it is a good thing for the overall health of the ecosystem in the long-term.
What can we look forward to at the summit?
The summit will cover several interesting topics that will showcase France as a leading tech and blockchain hub. Some of the panels will delve into discussions points specifically focused on certain aspects the technology, while others will delve into the broader ecosystem and how we can best facilitate the continued growth and adoption of this technology.
Matters such as regulation, including how France is spearheading blockchain regulation in Europe, and the role of corporates will all be important talking points.
The panels will consist of pioneers operating at the forefront of the blockchain industry. The biggest innovators in the industry will address the biggest questions within a growing ecosystem, which should make for a thought-provoking and entertaining event!
You can also look forward to lots of satellite events taking place around Paris for the entire week of the summit, organized by some of the biggest blockchain organisations in Paris. These events will include hackathons, dinners, parties, and much more.- By Admin
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Smart cities and opportunities that digital transformation and IoT technologies offer can help to improve the quality of life in urban cities.
However, this “smart” urban landscape, with numerous connected devices and vast communication network, opens up a whole new set of security challenges—challenges that cannot be addressed by the existing conventional cybersecurity solutions.
Below we explore the potential of blockchain technology to provide robust scalable solutions and secure large-scale smart cities’ networks from cyber attacks.
The Next-gen Solutions
IoT-powered smart cities consist of several users and numerous different kinds of devices – big and small, enterprise and consumer - connected to central systems and one another.
Not only this, unlike traditional network perimeters consisting of a fixed number of devices, smart city networks are ever expanding and hence require security solutions that can be just as scalable without compromising on quality or efficiency. And that’s where blockchain and other emerging technologies come in.
The technology attributed to the success of cryptocurrencies offers significant potential in securing the millions and billions of connected devices and an ever-growing smart city network.
The cryptographically secure, decentralized and consensus-driven blockchain technology can be used to secure not only end users’ identity, connected devices and critical infrastructure but also offers secure communication and transmission of data across the network.
This, along with other emerging technologies, SDP architecture and approaches including the zero-trust model, offer unique opportunities to secure smart cities in bold new ways.
Digital IDs for all and everything: Assigning blockchain-based digital smart IDs can help securely identify, authenticate and authorize each and every resident as well as every one of the connected devices within a smart city network. These IDs are unique and difficult to tamper with, spoof or clone.
The Smart ID can be used to authenticate oneself and access various services as well as to securely link, store, share and authorize the use of personal information by relevant agencies and service providers.
By its very nature, blockchain is cryptographically secure, helping ensure that all information stored as well as passed around within the network remains encrypted and protected from attempts to compromise it.
Scalability to protect an ever-expanding network of users and devices: Owing to its decentralized nature, a blockchain-powered system effectively removes single points of failure that can be taken down or compromised in a cyber attack.
This feature makes such a solution highly robust while the multi node-based system provides a scalable solution for the ever-widening smart city perimeter. It allows for ease in scaling up and down as large number of users and various kinds of devices are added to or leave the network, without compromising on the efficiency of the security.
Locked down critical infrastructure and isolation of infected devices: Additionally, leveraging software-defined perimeter and a zero-trust security model allow such a solution to ring-fence and render critical infrastructure invisible, ensuring vital utilities are secure while isolating and immediately addressing any potential threats to the system.
Software-defined perimeter architecture can be used to render critical infrastructure in smart cities invisible, by ring-fencing them and only permitting recognized devices visibility and access to these resources. This provides an additional layer of security and prevents the risk of external threats.
The Zero Trust model provides micro-segmentation, allowing for compromised user IDs and infected devices to be quickly isolated from the network and acted upon independently.
Tamper-proof logs record all activity, preventing any attack from going undetected: One of the most powerful attributes of blockchain—the provision to record all access and communication within the network in tamper-proof logs makes it impossible for any potential attackers to hide or erase their attempts to access or misuse information within such a secure smart city network.
The instant visibility ensures that any successful unauthorized attempt is recognized, the infected device can be taken offline and its access to other connected devices in the network can be disabled, preventing further escalation of the cyber attack.
With ever-growing population migrating to urban cities in developed and emerging economies of the world, digital transformation is the only way forward in ensuring that cities’ infrastructure can keep up with the rising demand of its residents.
The opportunities on offer are immense, but cybersecurity is a pertinent threat that needs to be addressed before large scale rollout of smart city programs can be undertaken.
These digital initiatives will require significant investment and effort as well as modern approaches towards security in order to realize their true potential and ensure mainstream adoption.
Emerging technologies, models and methods offer opportunities to secure smart cities in bold new ways. Fortifying connected devices, critical infrastructure and complex networks with truly next-gen security systems will help minimize risk and ensure smart city programs realize their potential in the real world as a viable solution to tackle growing urbanization.
To know the role of blockchain technology in securing smart cities, read here.- By Admin
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