The Business Blockchain

6 IMPLEMENTING BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world.”

–ALBERT EINSTEIN

THE MORE FOUNDATIONAL A TECHNOLOGY IS, the more impact it can have. Blockchain technology is not a process improvement technology. At its fullest deployment potential, it is rather a disruptive technology; therefore it must be given that potential when being implemented.

Most of the major blockchain platforms have been developed via a transparent, open source, collaborative approach, including a good degree of decentralized contributed work. This has two outcomes: a) the proverbial “sausage-making” is not always pretty, and b) up until final releases are set, implementation and deployment compromises are more routine than exceptions. Until blockchain technology development matures (around 2018–2020), you will need to manage the variety of implementation challenges that are paved along its way.

We could end up with a similar situation as during the Web’s initial years. Many early businesses failed, some due to weaknesses in technology, others due to stretched business model assumptions (the result of a lack of enough market experience), and some due to both. Eventually, Internet and Web technology evolved, improved, and enabled the building of more powerful implementations.

With the blockchain, one could adopt a conservative approach and wait until the technology matures, ...