90% of current enterprise blockchain platform implementations will require replacement by 2021: Gartner

By 2021, 90% of current enterprise blockchain platform implementations will require replacement within 18 months to remain competitive, secure and avoid obsolescence, according to Gartner.

“Blockchain platforms are emerging platforms and, at this point, nearly indistinguishable in some cases from core blockchain technology,” said Adrian Lee, senior research director at Gartner. “Many CIOs overestimate the capabilities and short-term benefits of blockchain as a technology to help them achieve their business goals, thus creating unrealistic expectations when assessing offerings from blockchain platform vendors and service providers.”

Today, the blockchain platform market is composed of fragmented offerings that often overlap or are being used in a complementary fashion, making technology choices confusing for IT decision makers.

“Compounding this challenge is the fact that blockchain platform vendors typically use messaging that does not link to a target buyer’s use cases and business benefits. For example, ‘transactions’ was the term mentioned the most in relation to blockchain, followed by ‘secure’ and ‘security.’ While these may be functions of blockchain-enabling technology, buyers are still confused as to how these functions are achieved or what benefits blockchain adds compared to their existing processes,” said Mr. Lee.