The adoption of Blockchains in Europe is a mixed bag. On the one hand, studies from mid-2017 show that Europe and Asia have taken the lead on Blockchain innovation.
On the other hand, a detailed study conducted with European businesses on their views on Blockchain shows a certain amount of trepidation and conservatism. This study threw up some very important points on their approach -
Is Blockchain a groundbreaking technology?
Blockchain in Europe is being not being accorded the ‘red-carpet’ treatment. It’s being treated as any other technology. Half the companies surveyed had defined their Blockchain strategy. 94% of the remaining businesses were in the process of defining their strategy.
Blockchain – A vehicle for a new business model
Blockchain was not being viewed as a technology to maintain the status quo. It was considered as a way to deliver competitive advantage, helping companies move away from traditional ideas of competition and use Blockchain features like privacy, security, immutability, transparency, reliability and process integrity to find a whole new way of doing business.
Dramatically new business lines are not being considered
Blockchains are being used to pursue traditional business models like the creation of new service lines, customer segments and markets. Not many businesses view Blockchains as a means to extract greater value from internal assets.
Going solo
A large majority of businesses are looking to implement Blockchain by themselves. A very small proportion of businesses are considering collaborating with other stakeholders or joining consortiums.
In contradistinction to this conservatism, there are 10 Blockchain start-ups in Europe. Here’s a brief summary of a few of these starts ups.
Bitcliq (http://www.bitcliq.com/) is the world’s first Blockchain marketplace for fish trading connecting fishing fleets with buyers and facilitating the purchase of fish the moment they are caught at sea by retailers and restaurateurs. It’s also a mechanism that allows traceability from catch location to the table which is essential to catch out illegal fishing practices and ocean pollution.
Lendonomy (https://lendonomy.io/)is a p2p mobile lending platform for young adults that combines gamification, social networking, and Augmented reality. Their stated goal is to fight invisible poverty faced by millions of young people today and inspire them to support and trust each other through sharing and lending money to peers around the world - all while building a verifiable credit history.
Ambrosus (https://ambrosus.com/) is a farm to fork ensuring data integrity. Relevant to the food and pharmaceutical industry, it utilizes IoT allowing a conversation between sensors, distributed ledgers and databases to ensure supply chain visibility and QA.
Authenteq (https://authenteq.com/) uses Blockchain for identity verification. It allows users to verify their identity without entering any data while protecting their privacy. As we all know, verifying identity has many benefits – reducing anti-social behaviour, reducing fraud, improving trust and safety etc.
CargoX (https://cargox.io/) is a supplier of Blockchain-based Smart Bill of Lading. A Bill of lading is a detailed list of a ship's cargo in the form of a receipt given by the master of the ship to the person consigning the goods. Whilst the Bill of lading processing is a specific application, the CargoX Blockchain is a document transfer platform that allows secure and instant document transfer. What is more – they have a pipeline of future products for the supply chain industry.
Colendi (https://www.colendi.com/) uses Blockchain technology to credit score individuals, with users receiving a global financial passport, as it were. Using this passport, users can have greater access to micro-financing. In such a scenario, Colendi provides a viable credit scoring mechanism that serves as a trusted agent between borrowers and lenders.
ODEM (https://odem.io/) is an on-demand education marketplace built on the Ethereum Blockchain. ODEM uses Blockchain to deliver affordable, accessible and verifiable educational content. It connects students with various educational hubs via a smart contract payment platform and enables students and professors to interact directly.
Fieldcoin (https://www.fieldcoin.io/index.php) is a platform using Blockchain technology to connect landowners with crowdfunding investors while enabling fast and cheaper transfers of land property to individuals and companies. Fieldcoin brings together four disruptive innovations – IoT, Blockchain technology 4.0 Agribusiness technologies and Crowdfunding.
What is the way forward for the wider adoption of Blockchain technology?
Recognize Blockchain for its transformative qualities
Blockchain should not be viewed as 'just another technology', but a completely new business paradigm that enables trusted value transactions and trusted information sharing allowing new ways of working with partners.
Develop use cases, prototypes and minimal viable products
Blockchain implementation is not just ‘another’ project. Use cases need to be thought of, prototypes should be created and MVPs – minimal viable products – should be the ’light at the end of the tunnel’.
Gain a deep understanding of the problem to be solved with Blockchain
A Blockchain implementation requires a multi-disciplinary team comprising economics and legal experts apart from industry experts who can come up with a plan to scale up the use case to an industry-grade solution.
Future Blockchain scenarios
A solitary initial use case will not give a Blockchain project ‘legs’. Future scenarios where Blockchain would benefit the business should be thought of at the outset. Such long-term benefits enable the building of a strong business case for the implementation.
A final thought
Europe has great potential to be the leader in the adoption of Blockchain. There is a heavy investment into Blockchains being made by the APAC.
Critical to this success is a change of mindset. Conventional, cultural dogmas should be jettisoned in favour of a ‘will do everything differently now’ attitude.
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