Blockchain: disruptive innovation or over-hyped development?

You’ll have been hard pressed not to have read at least one article about blockchains and their potential benefits! Having said that, apart from a small group of experts, it’s an area that is still little understood. In between a stream of press releases—really marketing announcements dressed up as news of innovations—and white papers, that tackle the subject from the very specific angle of fundamental computer-science research, statistics, and cryptography, it can be difficult for decision makers at major companies to set a sensible way forward.

To illustrate the thinking, let’s take the analogy of medical research, where the development of new solutions is very carefully managed. As a thought experiment to see whether blockchains are a fully developed technology, we can compare it with a new drug. A number of questions come to mind naturally, like: what disease is the drug intended to treat? Where are we in terms of testing? And is the product sufficiently mature for marketing authorization?

Let’s take a look at where blockchains are, in terms of these questions.