Christophe Langlois A review of the blockchain landscape, the coronavirus’ impact on crypto, and what’s in store for the rest of 2020.
Incumbent financial institutions also looked to expand their service offerings in areas such as custody and trading.
Blockchain Report Highlights
- Bitcoin was on top until the coronavirus hit. Bitcoin’s price nearly doubled in 2019 despite dampened media coverage. Goldman Sachs named it the best-performing asset in 2019. However, since the coronavirus sell-off, BTC is down ~30% YTD.
- Deals are moving from West to East. In 2015, 51% of deals were for US-based companies while only 2% went to China-based companies. In 2019, the US’ share of deals fell to 31% and China’s rose to 22%.
- Enterprise blockchain funding has lagged. Efforts to reduce back-office costs and improve business processes are still ongoing. However, funding to other applications has been nearly 7x higher than to enterprise blockchain over the past 5 years.
- Central banks are serious about fiat digital currencies. The future of programmable money could come out of a central bank, not a startup. Central banks across the globe, such as in China and England, are exploring central bank digital currencies.
