Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com OSTK, +0.00% , is just one of many high-profile tech types bursting over the future of blockchain.
“Over the next decade, there will be disruption as significant as the internet was for publishing, where blockchain is going to disrupt dozens of industries, one being capital markets and Wall Street,” he once told PC Mag.
But, according to a new Gartner study, Byrne is in the minority.
Of 3,138 chief information officers polled around the world, only 1% currently use the technology and a mere 22% say they plan on using it in the future.
The numbers reflect what David Furlonger, vice president and Gartner fellow, calls “the massively hyped state of blockchain adoption.”
Here are the overall results of the survey:
Furlonger warned that rushing into blockchain could result in failed innovation, wasted investment, rash decisions, and ultimately rejection of a game-changing technology, among other “significant” problems.
“It is critical to understand what blockchain is and what it is capable of today, compared to how it will transform companies, industries and society tomorrow,” he said. “The challenge for CIOs is not just finding and retaining qualified engineers, but finding enough to accommodate growth in resources as blockchain developments grow.”
He added that qualified engineers may be hesitant to hop aboard “due to the historically libertarian and maverick nature of the blockchain developer community.”
Some industries appear to be more reluctant to embrace the technology than others. Overstock’s Byrne pointed to Wall Street as one that could be transformed, and the studies findings support that. CIOs from the financial services sector said they were more involved in blockchain planning and experimentation than the others.
“While many industries indicate an initial interest in blockchain initiatives,” Furlonger said, “it remains to be seen whether they’ll accept decentralized, distributed, tokenized networks, or stall as they try to introduce blockchain into legacy value streams and systems.”
