Name: Neha Pinto

Section: MBA –HR

Gartner’s Hype cycle for blockchain

About blockchain:
Blockchain an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties
efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way. A blockchain is typically managed by a
peer-to-peer network via internode communication. Once recorded, the data in any given
block cannot be altered without alteration of all subsequent blocks. So it is used to prevent
modification of data.

Blocks on the blockchain are made up of digital pieces of information. Specifically, they have
three parts:
1) Blocks store information about transactions like the date, time, and dollar amount.
2) Blocks store information about who is participating in transactions. Purchase is recorded
without any identifying information using a unique “digital signature,” sort of like a
username.
3) Blocks store information that distinguishes them from other blocks. Each block stores a
unique code called a “hash” that allows us to tell it apart from every other block.

The Gartner Hype Cycle:

1) Innovation Trigger
Blockchain technology’s innovation trigger came in the form of a white paper written by
Satoshi Nakamoto. The white paper titled Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System
shared the workings for a new digital currency system that didn’t rely on banks to facilitate
transactions or governments to create and disseminate the currency. Although the proposed
bitcoin payment system was exciting, it was the mechanics of how it worked that was truly
revolutionary. As it turned out, the main technical innovation was not actually the digital
currency itself but the technology that lay behind it, known today as blockchain. In the
following few years after the white paper is released, word begins to spread amongst
technology insiders, businesses and at conferences. These years also witnessed the birth of
altcoins such as Namecoin, Litecoin, OpenCoin (Ripple) and other more privacy-focused
coins like DASH, Monero, and ZCash
2) Peak of Inflated Expectations
The advent of Ethereum back in 2014 ultimately enabled the explosion of new projects and
coins and the subsequent mania. Developers had for the first time a platform to build and
deploy other decentralized applications but Ethereum also gave birth to a new fundraising
mechanism called an Initial Coin Offerings (ICO). Talk of the potentially revolutionary
nature of blockchain technology hit its peak and expanded to a larger segment of the
population and business community. Blockchain technology was idealized as a panacea to
every known problem in the world and became the hot topic in the tech and business
community. Some corporations, like the Long Island Iced Tea Corp., merely renamed
themselves to include the word blockchain and witnessed their share price soar 289%.the
period of time from 2014–2017 saw expectations reach unprecedented levels with hundreds
of start-ups and tokens being created, some seemingly overnight, and billions of dollars
invested in projects with little promise

3) Trough of Disillusionment.
The Trough of Disillusionment highlights technologies and markets where interest has waned
as experiments and implementations fail to deliver. The Gartner Inc. 2019 Hype Cycle for
Blockchain Technologies shows that blockchain is sliding into the Trough of
Disillusionment. Blockchain is not yet enabling a digital business revolution across business
ecosystems and may not until at least 2028, when Gartner expects blockchain to become fully
scalable technically and operationally. The vast majority of blockchain projects have since
failed to gain traction and many have also been exposed as scams taking advantage of the
euphoric and unrealistic expectations of the public. Ethereum’s price has experienced a total
decline of approximately 76% in 2018. A large number of investors have lost a lot of money
which has, in turn, dragged down disillusionment and spread negative sentiment even further.
The failure rate of ICOs has skyrocketed in 2018, some research indicating that well over
50% of ICOs fail and do so rather quickly. It’s become much harder for projects to raise
funding as there is now widespread scepticism around scams and the potential for meaningful
ROIs on ICO.
Blockchain as a disruptive technology:
 BitCoin is one of those applications that make use of the blockchain. Whether BitCoin
will become a disruptive innovation for conventional currencies remains an open
debate. So far, cryptocurrencies, most prominently BitCoin, are not yet accepted as
currencies in the formal way (only in Japan BitCoin is an official currency). We will
see in the coming years whether BitCoin has the potential to disrupt the currency
market.
 Elections require authentication of voters’ identity, secure record keeping to track
votes, and trusted tallies to determine the winner. In the future, blockchain tools could
serve as a foundational infrastructure for casting, tracking, and counting votes —
potentially eliminating the need for recounts by taking voter fraud and foul play off
the table.
By capturing votes as transactions through blockchain, governments and voters would
have a verifiable audit trail, ensuring no votes are changed or removed and no
illegitimate votes are added. One blockchain voting startup, Follow My Vote, has
released the alpha version of its stake-weighted end-to-end blockchain voting
solution.
 Use of blockchain technology could allow hospitals, payers, and other parties in the
healthcare value chain to share access to their networks without compromising data
security and integrity.
Tierion is a blockchain startup that has built a platform for data storage and
verification in healthcare; it partnered with Philips Healthcare in the Philips
Blockchain Lab in 2018.Another startup, Hu-manity, partnered with IBM on an
electronic ledger that is trying to give patients more control over their data. Hu-
manity’s stated mission is to create “Fair Trade Data practices” that would enable the
patient to profit from consenting to share data.