A Cambridge University report on enterprise blockchains found that 43% of projects in production are carried out in financial companies.
The University of Cambridge published the results of the second enterprise blockchain comparative study, which collected data from surveys of more than 200 enterprises, startups, central banks and other public sector institutions in 59 countries from July 2018 to June 2019.
One of the sections of the survey was devoted to corporate projects on the blockchain. After analyzing 67 operating networks, the researchers concluded that in 43% of cases, blockchains are used in financial projects, for example, for clearing and reconciling records.
At the same time, the researchers found that most projects are developed for a long time. On average, it takes about 25 months from proof of concept to deployment, and larger networks can take more than four years to build.
Enterprise blockchains are much more centralized than their open counterparts. This means that instead of thousands of anonymous nodes and miners securing the blockchain, one or more nodes agree on the content of the new blocks and the existing chain.
Managed blockchains, which provide greater control over networks and a high level of privacy, are important in industries where data is trade secret. However, this raises concerns that centralization would allow leading organizations to gain an unfair advantage and potentially block others from accessing aggregated results.
Cambridge researchers found that over 80% of enterprise projects used only one blockchain deployment service to run nodes and mine. 48% of the reviewed projects are based on the IBM Hyperledger Fabric blockchain, and 15% are based on R3’s Corda.
According to the report, market leaders have developed over 70% of enterprise blockchain projects in the hope that other companies in their industry will join them. Industry consortia have deployed 22% of enterprise blockchains, with just over 5% being created by government agencies. Working under the auspices of market leaders allows some corporate networks to grow at a faster pace, but they may struggle to attract competitors to their platform.
In addition to the financial sector, blockchain is often used to track supply chains. Austrian gin maker Stin recently said it intends to use NFC technology and ICON blockchain for bottle tracking and supply chain transparency. In addition, in August, the USDA announced that it will track the supply of organic products using the blockchain.
