ly described in future tense. And if a blockchain
revolution is on the way, a generation of startups
likely will have to fail first, much as happened with
the dotcom bubble. A 2017 Deloitte analysis of more
than 86,000 blockchain projects launched on the
software collaboration platform GitHub concluded
that only 8 percent were still going, with an average
lifespan of just over a year. For example, in early
2015, the blockchain peer-to-peer lending platform
BTCJam was listed by Business Insider as one of the
25 most exciting Bitcoin startups. Two years later it
shut down, citing regulatory challenges.
Even the bullish Shtofman says that in real es-
tate, intermediaries are going to be needed for the
foreseeable future: attorneys for legal agreements,
real estate agents for local knowledge, and title in-
surers to check a property’s provenance until a big
group of proven-clean titles are loaded onto the
blockchain. It’s hard to see how, in the short term,
the scenario of a six-hour real estate sale could
come to pass without eliminating time-consuming,
in-person intermediary steps like a home inspec-
tion and attorney review of closing documents.
And many in the title insurance industry are
skeptical that the new technology will ever sig-
nificantly change the need for their services. The
American Land Title Association argues that the
number of quirky and obscure errors that can
creep into a property’s title mean blockchain will
never replace the need for human oversight. That
“garbage-in” issue is known in the blockchain
world as the “oracle problem,” says McBain, and
there’s no easy solution.
Mass adoption also depends on familiarity
and trust, and on that score, Beadles says there’s a
long way to go. Monarch Wallet has 200,000 users,
which seems like a lot until you consider that pop-
ular payment app Venmo has 18 million and PayPal
10 million. Most companies too are paying little at-
tention, according to one study: In a 2017 survey of
more than 3,000 chief information officers around
the world by research and advisory company Gart-
ner, 43 percent said blockchain was on the radar
but that they had no plans to test it, and 34 percent
said they had no interest. Beadles himself advises
caution. Though Splash Factory helps firms build
custom blockchain apps, he advises companies
not to get into blockchain “just because it sounds
cool. Unless you have a part of your business that
requires immutability and transparency, you don’t
need blockchain.”
Yet last May, a Gartner vice president warned
Wall Street Journal readers that “if business leaders
wait for the hype cycle to run its course they may
no longer have a business to operate in — at least
nothing like they have previously experienced and
profited from.”
If he’s right, companies have some options for
educating themselves. Lots of books out there offer
good blockchain overviews. XYO cofounder Markus
Levin suggests attending one of the area’s several
blockchain Meetup groups, buying a few shares of a
blockchain company, or putting a few dollars into a
cryptocurrency, which will force you to learn more
about how it all works.
And McBain has some inexpensive advice: “Get
the smartest son or daughter of someone at your
company who is 18 or 19, have them research the
blockchain, and have them tell you how it applies to
your company.” n
Steven Yoder writes about business, real estate
and criminal justice. His work has appeared in
The Fiscal Times, Salon, The American Prospect
and elsewhere. On Twitter @syodertweet and at
www.stevenyoder.net.
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