Blockchain — What's the Use?

A review of dozens of blockchain projects by John Burg and Jean Paul Pétraud, of the US Agency for International Development, and the community health specialist Christine Murphy, found no evidence of the technology’s effectiveness. They studied 43 cases “which were described with glowing claims such as ‘operation costs reduced up to 90 percent,’ or with the assurance of ‘accurate and secure data capture and storage’.”

See (https://www.techcentral.ie/blockchain-whats-it-good-for-not-all-a-lot-says-report/)

Yet despite a “proliferation of press releases, white papers and articles,” they found no evidence of the results that blockchain were purported to have achieved. “We also did not find lessons learned or practical insights, as are available for other technologies in development.” They added that they fared no better when they contacted blockchain companies via email, phone and in person. “No one was willing to share data on program results,” they said. “Despite all the hype about how blockchain will bring unheralded transparency to processes and operations in low-trust environments, the industry is itself opaque. From this, we determined the lack of evidence supporting value claims of blockchain in the international development space is a critical gap for potential adopters.”

Even Cryptocash, that Blockchain darling, has suffered — with about $700 billion wiped off the market since its peak at around $800 billion at the start of the 2018, leaving a trail of destroyed startups behind it. Bitcoin at one point closed in on the $3,000 price mark, well below both its peak of nearly $20,000 in 2017 and a so-called “floor” of $6,000. And now major Wall Street firms once rumored to be preparing entries to the cryptocurrency market—particularly bitcoin futures—appear to have gotten cold feet after a brutal beatdown in crypto prices this year, Bloomberg reported on Sunday.

A bevy of major firms including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, and Barclays (of London) have all delayed plans to launch bitcoin-related financial services, Bloomberg wrote. Much of the caution has been due to the crash, but other factors have included a lack of guidance from regulators and a bevy of criminal and other investigations in the sector, according to Bloomberg’s report.

Now to be fair, the LASER, which was invented nearly 60 years ago, was a lab curiosity for a very long time, but now the high-speed Internet itself wouldn't exist if not for its invention. Perhaps in the future, Blockchain can serve some useful purpose. One never knows.