Blockchain is not about disrupting businesses, but about unlocking new potential for value and efficiency

Matthew Spoke is a Bitcoin and Ethereum enthusiast who has been working to advance the use of Deloitte’s Rubix smart distributed protocol.

In this article, Spoke believes that although many companies are optimistic about blockchain technology, whether it can become a disruptive or complementary technology remains to be seen.

If 2013 and 2014 were the years of the Bitcoin exchange, then it’s safe to say that 2016 will be the year of the blockchain enterprise. In other words, there seems to be a consensus in the community that we need to make blockchain technology more accessible and more suitable for large companies to utilize.

Regardless of how these companies leverage the Bitcoin protocol, the Ethereum protocol, or something else, different companies have different strategies and focus.

These companies may differ by underlying protocol, industry, or use case, but they all share a common goal.

In my daily life, when I talk to big companies about blockchain solutions, I often think to myself: On one hand, I recognize the huge importance of enterprise innovation and the need for existing large enterprise companies to change their status quo.

I firmly believe that there will still be a place for today’s “intermediaries” and “third party roles” moving towards a more efficient and decentralized future.

But on the other hand, I also see the irony of this suggestion.

In the early stages, it was common to argue that blockchain opened the door to the potential for disintermediation not just for these established businesses, but for entire industries. Now, however, the industry has clearly adjusted its hostile tone and enterprises are no longer necessarily the targets of future disruption. Instead, forward-thinking businesses may become the vessels of change.

For example, a growing number of companies in the global capital markets are turning to blockchain as an additional tool to redefine their businesses.

The cynics might point to the fact that these same centralized intermediaries could become the logical entities that disintermediate. I won’t answer this particular question because I don’t really know the answer.

At a high level, if this technology still may present some existential risk to some companies (which I think it does), then why are these companies justifying the attention and investment that they have already put into blockchain technology?

Two situations

Without mentioning specific types of companies and applications, generally speaking, I think there are two “situations” to consider:

1. Blockchain as a complementary technology

2. Blockchain as an alternative technology

While time will tell, my prediction is that we will see three different scenarios for blockchain adoption in these enterprise companies, depending on the industry and use case:

1. Currently, valuable but inefficient systems and applications will be reimagined, using blockchain technology to remove unnecessary pain and friction, i.e. situation (1)

2. Systems and applications that currently exist only because of technological deficiencies and inefficiencies will turn their attention to blockchain technology, starting with situation (1), but situation (2) will be the ultimate result.

3. New, previously unimaginable applications and possibilities will emerge as a result of blockchain technology, i.e., status quo (2)

The good news is that all three of these scenarios will lead to a more efficient future in which blockchain is unlocking new potential for value and efficiency.

The bad news, however, is that many existing companies will eventually see that their current business models and value propositions are built around scenario (1) above.

If we don’t want to have these established intermediaries become “predictors of doom,” I think it’s important to have these difficult conversations, rather than pushing blockchain technology as a way to cure outdated business models.

Instead, blockchain needs to become a tool to be used when planning longer-term corporate strategies, with the primary focus on redefining value propositions and building customer-centric solutions for the future.