Blockchain Market and Technology Trends in 2019: What To Expect

Blockchain still is on the agenda of company executives, technical specialists, as well as media representatives; its evolution over the past few years is simply breathtaking. Despite the statements of the spiteful critics about the overestimation of this phenomenon, the blockchain is still at the very beginning of its journey and could offer a lot to the market.

What to expect from this technology in 2019? We studied several forecasts, articles, and analytical reports — and came up with a summary blockchain trends report about what experts call the key features for the nearest future.

Integration of blockchain and IoT

Almost every analytical material calls this trend to be definitely promising; also mentioned by Bernard MARR, the author of Forbes, in his recent story. According to Statista, in 2019 the number of devices connected to the Internet will reach more than 26 bln in 2019. However, this phenomenon also has its own fly in the ointment — a study of the Gemalto cybersecurity company revealed some pretty disturbing facts. According to the data obtained in the course of the study, only 48% of companies can determine if their devices have security breaches. This fact led to the security-related activity in the previous year when the companies have significantly increased their cybersecurity costs. The use-cases of the blockchain involvement doubled. It is possible that by the end of 2019 we would observe even more impressive numbers.

Blockchain as a service (BaaS)

The rapid development of the blockchain requires its systematization as well as the system integration. A couple of blockchain experts in-house is sometimes not enough for the implementation of solutions, especially when it comes to large corporations that tend to exploit the technology.

Aviv LICHTIGSTEIN, an experienced specialist in building enterprise products, notes in his blog that the cloud service will be in high demand in 2019, and puts this trend in first place on his personal list of blockchain future trends. BaaS would allow customers to create blockchain-based products, including applications and smart contracts, and utilize other blockchain functions without the need to develop their own infrastructure.

“Few companies including Amazon, Microsoft and others already provide this service. I think that the adoption of the use of BaaS will increase in 2019. It will also enable companies to use blockchain technology without worrying about the initial investment",

— says Aviv Lichtigstein.

Blockchain technology trends: hybrids, cross-platform, etc.

The development of technology inevitably creates types and subtypes. Blockchain didn’t escape that one, too. Knowing this, a hybrid blockchain can become one of the trends — it functions, providing the best features from both public and private blockchains. The hybrid blockchain can become the ideal customizable solution and find implementation in hybrid IoT, as well as such blockchain trends are in supply chain, banking, corporate services, etc.

Also, different blockchains have different characteristics: speed, network processing, use cases, and so on. The development of interoperability will become another blockchain trend 2019 to improve the exchange of information between different networks or blockchain systems. Cross-platform services will improve compatibility and become more practical for everyday use.

Blockchain investment trends: cryptos

Many experts strongly recommend separating blockchain from the cryptocurrencies, but this is almost impossible. Despite the protracted stagnation of the crypto market, Bitcoin is still the most successful example of blockchain implementation in the financial sector. Cryptocurrencies are not going into oblivion in 2019. The blockchain trends and new use-cases in the world of finances will include STOs, stablecoins, the exile of weak and untrustworthy projects — Bitnewstoday wrote about these predictions in a series of articles before.

The future of the blockchain is still very promising, and 2019 should be another successful year for the development of this technology. We will regularly speak about it in our upcoming publications.

Image courtesy: Codeburst