Businesses shouldn’t just integrate blockchain for the sake of it, says Atlas Neue co-founder

The buzz-worthy nature of blockchain and cryptocurrency may cause companies to implement the technology even when not necessary, industry figures said during a panel at the CryptoCompare MJAC London Blockchain Summit this week.

When asked whether firms should embrace the technology, Cassius Kiani, co-founder and chief product officer of Atlas Neue, said: “The short answer is that not all businesses should use blockchain technology. Fundamentally, it has a lot of great use cases, but but there are other cases where it’s irrelevant.

“The issue is that the market is rife, and so people are looking at blockchain technology as the next dotcom boom. It could be, but that doesn’t mean that you have to implement it… Don’t sandwich in blockchain technology for the sake of it, because it’s not useful. If your goal is to raise money, then there are better and safer ways.”

He went on to talk about ease of use, and why the relative complexity of crypto might stop virtual coins from replacing fiat in the future.

The buzz around blockchain in recent years has led to many companies scrambling to get behind the technology in order to stay competitive, but only a small fraction (8 per cent) of the 80,000 blockchain-based projects launched globally are still active, with the average lifespan estimated to be around 1.22 years.

“[These projects] came out very quickly, but die quickly as well,” said He Baohong, director of CAICT. “In this circumstance, governments globally are accelerating their efforts to establish unified standards in order to help blockchain projects to achieve real-life applications.”