The terms “blockchain” and “bitcoin” often go hand-in-hand. After all, the bitcoin digital currency was developed to operate over blockchain ledger technology. But as more financial institutions take a look at the potential of these innovations, industry players seem more interested in how blockchain can lead to faster global payments — whether a payment is done with bitcoin or not.
New research from Greenwich Associates seems to confirm this concept. Reports by CoinDesk published Tuesday (Oct. 6) say nearly three-quarters of financial industry experts agree that blockchain technology can take off and thrive, even if bitcoin doesn’t.
According to reports, Greenwich Associates found that 73 percent of FinServ experts agreed that the blockchain is not dependent on bitcoin to impact the market. The results were summarized in a new report, “Distributed Ledgers in Capital Markets: Answering the Big Questions.”
[bctt tweet=”73% of FinServ experts agreed that the blockchain is not dependent on bitcoin to impact the market.”]
Additional findings conclude that nearly one-third (32 percent) believe that legal and compliance officials will trust payments made via the blockchain, and an additional 38 percent said that they believe these personnel will “eventually” trust the technology.
Thirteen percent of those surveyed said that “more regulation is needed” before regulators and compliance officials can establish trust in payments via blockchain. About one-tenth, however, said that this trust is unlikely to ever take shape in the market.
“For the blockchain or another distributed ledger to provide this clarity to the market, market participants and the legal system would all have to recognize the ledger as the golden copy of who owns what,” the report concluded. “This is technically possible but not a reality just yet.”
Regardless, the industry seems to think that should the blockchain take off as an accepted technology in payments, bitcoin doesn’t need to be a part of the equation — except for those with a background in bitcoin.
“This result doesn’t scream controversial,” the report said. “But while capital markets professionals (who make up most of our sample) are convinced, those with backgrounds in bitcoin and the blockchain are not.”
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