The Challenges for Blockchain Technology and Corporate Adoption

There are current technological problems that are preventing more widespread adoption of blockchain technology, as well as potential solutions to these issues. Though blockchain offers numerous benefits, the technology still has a long way to go before it can reach its full potential.

So, where are we now? Any new technology, including blockchain technology, must pass through many phases. According to recent assessments, 90% of blockchain initiatives will need to be replaced within the next 18 months.

That is not surprising. It takes a long time for new technologies to overcome all of their hurdles and be used to power the contemporary world. And these difficulties aren’t just technological. What is the next step?

Challenges

Blockchain technology has been accompanied by a lot of buzz, which has piqued the curiosity of many corporate executives. Blockchain, on the other hand, confronts many blockchain adoption issues that make them hesitant. 

These are connected not just to technology inefficiencies, but also to a lack of regulation and a lack of knowledge/awareness. The majority of these difficulties must still be addressed and solved for the technology to achieve omnipresence and become a more acceptable technology for everybody.

Technological difficulties

Although blockchain technology offers many advantages, it still has several fundamental flaws that prevent it from gaining widespread acceptance. Bitcoin, as well as other blockchains, are widely recognized for their inefficient technical architecture, which results in limited scalability, slow network speed, high energy consumption, and, as a consequence, high transaction costs.

Aside from that, there is a lack of standards and interoperability, which limits the capacity of various blockchains to interact with one another. Ethereum attempted to conceal a number of these flaws, but it was insufficient.

Scalability is limited.

First and foremost, there is the question of scalability. Their low scalability in the face of high transaction volumes. This scalability trilemma is the key reason why many people question that blockchain systems will ever be able to operate at scale. 

It primarily focuses on the issues that existing blockchain systems have when attempting to strike the proper balance between scalability, decentralization, and security. Blockchains, in actuality, function well for a limited number of users. 

But what happens when there is widespread integration? Ethereum and Bitcoin now have the most users on the network, but they are having difficulty coping with the issue.

Inadequate speed

Another critical issue that must be addressed is the need to boost processing speeds. When the number of users increases, the network slows down and it takes longer to complete any transactions. This might result in exorbitant transaction costs, making the technology less appealing. 

Furthermore, the system’s encryption might make it even slower. Completing a transaction might take many hours or even days. As a result, it is best suited for huge transactions when speed is not an issue. This blockchain adoption difficulty may become a stumbling obstacle soon.

Problems with security and trust

Another critical issue that may hinder blockchain adoption is security. Every blockchain system touts security as a key benefit. However, blockchain, like any other technology, has a multitude of security threats, such as code faults or loopholes. Ethereum lets developers create dApps that run on its platform, and numerous dApps have been built on top of them. 

However, it seems that the majority of them are the result of incorrect code and loopholes. Users may use these flaws to easily hack into the system. Another important impediment to broad deployment is the ensuing lack of trust among blockchain users.

Methods for hastening blockchain adoption

Many approaches may be taken to address the different difficulties. Technology advances should address issues such as inefficient technical design, lack of scalability, poor speed, a lack of standards and interoperability, and excessive energy usage.

The challenges of privacy, trust, and security need adequate regulation without jeopardizing technological progress. Education, as well as wide information and communication, should be used to address skill shortages and public perception and awareness.

Technological advancements

The list of blockchain adoption issues emphasizes the need for technology advancements. The industry must create solutions to the most pressing issues it is now confronted with.

The good news is that, as we’ve seen, the blockchain community is actively striving to solve these technical difficulties, such as speed and power consumption, by using upgraded technology.

Blockchains for private use

Private networks such as Corda, Hyperledger, and Quorum may also be used to circumvent the privacy difficulties that come with the visible nature of public blockchains, which is particularly important for corporations. 

These networks are intended to support a limited number of network members with known identities, allowing for the execution of private transactions between two or more participating nodes. Because membership in such networks is restricted, they are also known as permissioned blockchain networks.

Interoperability standards

In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of interoperability initiatives aimed at bridging the gap between various blockchains. Many of them are designed to join private networks or public blockchains. These technologies will be more beneficial to corporate executives in the long run than previous efforts that concentrated on public blockchains and cryptocurrency-related tools.

In addition to the more well-known examples of first- or second-generation cross-chain communications, such as the Bitcoin Lightning Network, the Ethereum Raiden Network, and the Ripple Interledger Protocol, a growing number of interoperability projects, such as Cosmos, Neox, and Polkadot, are exploring third-generation solutions. 

In addition, an increasing number of initiatives are collaborating to enable their blockchains to connect, intending to resolve the blockchain isolation issue. The Blockchain Industrial Alliance, created by ICON, AION, and Wanchain, is a prime example.

Private blockchain protocols may be utilized to develop viable enterprise-grade systems capable of integrating several organizations or divisions within a single corporation. Participants will have restricted access, and all sensitive information would be kept strictly confidential. 

To foster user confidence, TradeLens (a global logistics network developed by Maersk and IBM utilizing the IBM Blockchain Platform) employs a permissioned blockchain to provide immutability, privacy, and traceability of shipping documents.

Blockchain-as-a-service

There is also blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS), which has the potential to reduce the blockchain skills gap. The adoption of BaaS allows enterprises to enjoy the advantages of blockchain without investing heavily in costly blockchain capabilities.

To take advantage, users simply need to understand the fundamentals of the technology (not its inner workings). They will, for example, need to understand how to execute smart contracts, but they will not need an expert understanding of distributed ledger complications.

ParallelChain is one platform that is offering blockchain-as-a-service to enterprise clients. The platform is a novel layer 1 protocol that uses an innovative, multi-class validator architecture and is based on a delegated proof of stake (DPoS) consensus mechanism (rallelBFT). 

This technique provides significant performance gains, such as higher throughput and shorter completion times, while preserving appealing censorship-resistance properties lost in other more centralized architectures.

The team behind the protocol produced a variety of business products on this proprietary platform and licensed them to corporate customers. These tools include eKYC and AML RegTech tools, supply chain tracking, firm data security monitoring system, asset tokenization, and more enterprise solutions. 

Looking ahead

Blockchains are ecosystems that need widespread adoption to function well. Without broad acceptance, blockchains’ usefulness and scalability will be restricted. As mentioned in this blog, the adoption of blockchain and DLTs is dependent on overcoming many hurdles, which will need active cooperation from governments and other public entities. 

Organizations are increasingly banding together to join collaborative blockchain working groups to solve shared pain points and build solutions that benefit everyone without disclosing private information. There are already a large number of apps and projects that are fully operational. The blockchain, like any technical invention, will continue to develop. 

Yes, there will be difficulties, but they should not be seen as hurdles. As a result, all blockchain concerns will be met with solutions and opportunities. There are many reasons to be positive about blockchain adoption.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice