Survey results from the Global Blockchain Business Council show that institutional investors expect companies to dramatically increase their investment in blockchain over the next few years, even while there is a belief that nearly 2 out of 3 senior executives have a “poor understanding” of the technology. Only 7% described their understanding as “good”, with the remainder describing it as “average”.
Other results show that banking and finance is widely seen as the sector that will be transformed the most by blockchain: 39% of investors believe the impact of blockchain on banking could be as big as that of the internet on the media.
According to the research, 76% of professional investors interviewed don’t feel senior executives at large established businesses are particularly committed to blockchain, but overall they expect global spend on blockchain technology to increase by 108% this year. Over one in 20 (6%) anticipate spend in this area will increase by more than 200% during this time period.
When it comes to which sectors professional investors believe blockchain will have the biggest impact on over the next five years, 69% cited financial services and banking, followed by 45% who said digital identity, and 34% who said healthcare.
Building on this, when asked which sectors will see the biggest increase in the usage of blockchain over the next two years as opposed to just exploring and researching its potential, 33% of institutional investors expect to see a “dramatic” increase in the use of this technology over this time period within financial services and banking, with a further 41% anticipating a slight increase.
Sandra Ro, CEO of the GBBC, said in a statement: “Our research suggests there is still a huge task ahead for the blockchain industry to educate senior executives at large corporations about the benefits of this new technology. Despite this, investors still expect companies to invest huge amounts of money into how they can capitalize on blockchain, but they anticipate it will vary greatly between different sectors. Indeed, our research reveals that 39% of professional investors believe blockchain will do to banking what the internet did to media.”
71 institutional investors were surveyed (including private equity, hedge funds, and pension funds) from around the world – interviewed by the market research company PollRight during December 2018 and January 2019. The full report was not released.