Big Four auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) just released its 2018 Global Blockchain Survey, subtitled “Blockchain is here. What’s your next move?” The sweeping survey pools data from 600 technology executives from 15 territories, with 31 percent of represented companies accruing $1 billion or more in annual revenue.

Notable Findings

In perhaps its most salient insight, the survey found that 84 percent of executives questioned say “their organizations have at least some involvement with blockchain technology.”

Of those with eyes and ears on the technology, 64 percent report “having a blockchain project underway,” while another 34 percent indicat that their projects are only in the research or theoretical phase of development. For those companies that haven’t made much progress, cost, lack of knowledge to begin and lack of governance were cited as the most formidable obstacles to development.

The report goes on to state that Gartner anticipates that blockchain-focused initiatives will generate some $3 trillion in business value annually by 2030. Gartner also finds that blockchain use cases are expanding as the market matures. While 84 percent of industry projects focused on financial services in 2017, that number has fallen to 46 percent in 2018, the research company claims.

The sentiment captured with PwC’s survey reflects Gartner’s research. While most respondents find blockchain technology most ripe to disrupt the financial services industry, other sectors — including industrial products and manufacturing, energy and utilities, and healthcare — were listed as the next top industries that could benefit from the blockchain’s functionality.

Still, even with expanding use cases, PwC’s respondents are cautious and measured in their outlook. Most believe that blockchain technology still faces barriers to adoption that shouldn’t be ignored. Of these concerns, regulatory uncertainty ranked as the highest concern at 48 percent, with lack of trust among users (45 percent) and the ability to “bring the network together” (44 percent) close behind as predominant concerns.

Survey respondents also recognize the United States as a clear leader in the blockchain space, though they believe that China will usurp this position in three to five years time, as well.