Deloitte at Ethereal Summit: Enterprise Blockchain Adoption Depends On Data Privacy

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Deloitte’s business is to know business: and corporations will begin incorporating blockchain into their business models when they know how their data is shared on the ledger, representatives from one of the world’s largest accountancy and advisory firms said today.

Speaking at Ethereal Summit in New York, four representatives from Deloitte who help companies understand how DLT can benefit their businesses, said one of the main hang-ups clients had was data storage on blockchain as well as its visibility.

“For most of our clients, the key question they have when looking at blockchain is what data are we sharing,” explained Chris Bordersen, one of Deloitte’s blockchain specialist leaders, and whether third parties would be able to see their inventory as well as customer or personal data if they stored it on the chain

“That’s what they’re worried about,” he added

Deloitte has assisted businesses with blockchain integration for the past couple of years. According to their website, part of the service includes helping clients explore options and develop solutions specific to their needs and requirements.

Dhananjay Goswami, a Deloitte specialist master, said that right now businesses “are fearful on how much data they can put on the blockchain”. 

Many businesses recognize that blockchain has clear advantages, argued Jack Kiernan, a Deloitte manager. In the past year, the debate has shifted from if to when they will have to seriously look at integrating it.

“There’s no reason they [businesses] wouldn’t jump on it today,” Kiernan said. Now that the regulatory climate is clearer than it was 12 months ago, with the no-action letter from the SEC as well as promising statements from CFTC chairman Christopher Giancarlo.

Tokenization is the high-profile aspect of blockchain but many businesses, according to Goswamni, were far more interested in some of the other aspects of blockchain. For instance, how it could be used to track goods across the supply-chain.

Many are looking towards permissioned blockchains – ledgers that can only be accessed by authorized parties – that provide the same technological advantages without the risk of confidential data becoming publicly available. “Corporates look at public blockchains as what could happen,” Kiernan said, “but they see the permissioned blockchain as their way to defend their position.”

Permissioned blockchains are still met with a certain amount of hostility by the wider cryptocurrency sector: the lack of transparency and total accessibility is considered anathema to the fundamental principles of blockchain.

But there is growing evidence to suggest that businesses are adopting permissioned blockchains. Richard Brown, the CTO of R3, the chief developer behind the Corda permissioned network, said they had become the fastest growing blockchain in 2018, as Crypto Briefing has previously reported.

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