Blockchain News: 4 Blockchain Trends To Keep An Eye Out For In 2019

Blockchain News: Blockchain Technology has been expanding itself in its approach, adoption and use cases. With 2019 knocking at our doors let’s check out some of the trends that shall be prevalent in the ecosystem, during the next year.

Though the year isn’t ending that well for cryptocurrencies in terms of their price point, it has been a fine year for both cryptocurrency and its underlying technology in terms of adoption and advancement. Still, in its baby stages, blockchain is often compared to the internet, and many believe that the Blockchain technology has untapped and unexplored future ahead. Here are a few blockchain tangents that are believed to grow and evolve next year into some major trends:

Trend #1: Security Tokens

In addition to crypto exchanges like Coinbase, Binance and Lykke seeking regulatory clearance for security tokens, traditional exchanges in the likes of Nasdaq, London Stock Exchange and the Swiss Stock Exchange have been developing digital asset platforms. All signs point that by the second half of 2019, the market infrastructure will be in place.

Referring to this timeline, by 2019 end the market could see the launch of several STO projects and major activity and more liquidity in early 2020.

Read more: Security Token Offerings(STO) are Illegal, Says Beijing’s Official

Trend #2: Alternative Asset Classes 

A global slowdown seems to be on the card for 2019, especially in the equity and bond markets. Observing all the indicators the investors are looking into alternative asset classes. The development of security tokens market could probably lead to tokenization of well-performing assets that previously lacked liquidity.

Imagine healthy Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and Real Estate Assets, that tend to have robust returns, but lack wide market access. While they may not be able to afford public market listing, opening up to global markets of investors could provide an infusion of capital that could help scale their businesses. With over 90% of companies in operation globally listed as SMEs, the potential for growth is significant.

Trend #3: Decentralized Ecosystem Platforms

Amongst the various use cases of Blockchain, one that has caught a major traction is the possibility to develop B2B2C ecosystems. In 2017, A McKinsey study showed the importance of ecosystems in the future. It suggested that in place of traditional industries, the new ecosystem will evolve and will capture over $50 trillion in revenue by 2025.

Quite similar to the growth of e-commerce in the nineties, the vast potential and possibilities of decentralized P2P ecosystems is yet to be discovered.

In enabling efficient peer-to-peer transactions through shared APIs, the potential of a smart contract-powered decentralized ecosystem is vast. 

Effectively this shall lead to new business models, where cooperative competition will come together to build up ecosystems that connect various players through the lifecycle of any product and the end-to-end delivery of services. Hit and trail of such a concept have been seen throughout 2018. For instance, A management college in India, SP Jain issued degrees and certificates on ethereum blockchain, to ensure that the degrees could not be hampered.

Such implementations are further inspiring other use cases, while also teaching about the kind of complications that can arrive in the process.

Trend #4: Hybrid Models

While tech-savvy’s have gleefully ventured into the ecosystem, most still perceive blockchain as a vague, not-quite-understood, new entrant to the tech environment. The decentralized technology streamlines processes and keeps tags on them, moreover, it isn’t alterable giving it an additional layer of transparency.

A need of the hour, 2019 may observe more and more companies trying to achieve a bridge the crypto and fiat worlds, enabling digital links between the two. The linkage could aid industries, from storage, trading, asset management of digital assets to real-world applications of technology for the bystander, such as voting and land-registry.

If we actually look at the broader, bigger picture of the cryptocurrency and blockchain ecosystem, 2018 has seen a marginal growth in the growth, acceptance and adoption. The projects that started in 2018 will complete a full circle by 2019 and inspire other developers, companies and industries to venture into this space.

Source: Forbes.com