After the launch of the first and most famous cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, everyone has been talking about the technology underlying the Bitcoin – blockchain. Today, not just companies spanning numerous sectors, but even policy makers, such as the European Parliament, are voting in favor of this technology. As the trust around this relatively new technology grows, and stakes get bigger, it’s only apt to discuss the mistakes in an enterprise blockchain project that must be avoided at all costs.

Mistakes in an enterprise blockchain project

1. No sense of purpose: It’s not about blindly aping your competitors and adopting blockchain for your enterprise. Most enterprises find it difficult to answer what purpose will the blockchain serve in their projects. For effective application of blockchain to any enterprise project, it must add trust to an untrusted environment and should be able to exploit a distributed ledger mechanism. Private blockchain lowers the security conditions and focuses on a more centralized identity management system. An enterprise must, therefore, identify the trusted areas versus non-trusted areas and thereafter apply blockchain to the non-trusted areas.
2. Assuming technology is scalable: While there is a market for over 50 different blockchain technologies, there are no ‘scalable’ blockchains to be found. Bitcoin and Ethereum are the closest options that are proven to be ‘at-scale’, although they have some kinks to work out as well. A blockchain provider may claim his technology to be mature and scalable, but CIOs need not make the mistake of believing them. It is important for CIOs to accept that most blockchain platforms will be immature for about 24 months, however; you can definitely make progress through experimentation and proof of concept.
3. Assuming technology is use-ready: Although it appears as if the blockchain technology has been around for decades, fact remains that blockchains are still in their infancy stages. No doubt, that in time, blockchains will expand their scope, meet the requirements of a global-scale distribution platform, and enable a programmable economy, but until then, CIOs need to ensure that their blockchain use case timeline correlates with the legal, accounting, regulatory, and evolving capabilities of blockchain functionality.
4. The blockchain is not a database: One of the most common mistakes most CIOs make is to consider only two use cases for blockchain – either a database or a storage mechanism. They need to understand what a blockchain is capable of, changing business models once and for all. CIOs must recognize the tradeoffs that blockchain offers data management capabilities and a decentralized service that avoids trusting a single central organization.
5. Failure to incorporate a learning curve: A hands-on approach to blockchain projects is a must for every enterprise. It’s not just about creating a blockchain, it’s also about the steep learning process associated with it. An enterprise needs to experiment with code, platforms, and new business models. And this holds true even if the project is outsourced; in which case the IT department must work closely with the third-party vendor. The idea is to make the in-house staff wiser in dealing with challenges that crop up in an enterprise blockchain project. CIOs must recognize that sometimes knowledge might be the only value delivered by blockchain in an enterprise project.

While various enterprises are making use of the blockchain technology, not all are successful. The difference lies understanding the nuances of this technology, goals of your company and then finding a meeting ground between the two. If this were done well, businesses would not repeat common mistakes while exploring the boundaries of this technology.