The document discusses the future of blockchain analysis using the Emerging Technology Analysis (ETAC) framework, highlighting its advantages in trust establishment, security, and cost-effectiveness over current methods. However, it also addresses challenges like limited scalability, privacy concerns, storage issues, and the absence of regulatory oversight which complicate certain use cases. A detailed analysis is available in the author's recent paper on blockchain's status and future directions.

1. Srinath Perera, Ph.D.
VP Research WSO2, Apache Member,
( srinath@wso2.com)
@srinath_perera
Few thoughts about
Future of Blockchain

2. Analysis based on ETAC
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This is analysis of blockchain, based on the Emerging
Technology Analysis (ETAC) framework

3. Impact?
• Replace current alternatives to trust that
are time-consuming, expensive, and
weaker (e.g. intermediaries and
government inspections.)
• It is faster, often establishing trust within
a second.
• It is much more secure, guarded by
cryptography algorithms and census data.
• The resulting system is cheaper and more
agile.
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4. Blockchain is many Use Cases
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5. Pros and Cons
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6. Challenges
• Limited scalability and latency
• about 8 minutes and about 2 to 3 transactions per second.
• Most use cases are not feasible under these limits.
• Private blockchain have faster algorithms although they provide
lesser guarantees.
• Limited privacy.
• Blockchain only provides pseudo anonymizations.
• However, by analyzing the transaction graph and other related
information, it is often possible to link users to transactions.
• Once one transaction is linked to a user, all his transactions
become known.
• Storage constraints.
• each node must store the full history of the blockchain. This
forestalls lightweight nodes, such as IoT devices
• As time passes, the history becomes larger aggravating the
problem.
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7. Risks
•Irrevocability.
• appeal is not possible
• Some use cases, this can be handled with undo
transaction, but some others (e.g. land registry) mistake
is not reversible without the current owner complying
•Regulator Absence.
• A regulator plays a key role in some use cases.
• Although not popular, regulators play a crucial role in
many systems (e.g. avoid fraud and periamid schemes.
• With Blockchain-based systems it is impossible or
expensive to fill the missing regulator’s role.
•Misunderstood Side Effects.
• impact beyond CS
•Unclear Regulatory Responses.
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8. Feasibility of Use case Categories
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9. Read the paper
• A detailed analysis is in our recently published
paper, “A use case centric survey of Blockchain:
status quo and future directions”.
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Thanks for reading!!