Taking Blockchain Mainstream
Blockchain is a technology primed to revolutionize enterprises, governments, and society — but how can we make this vision a reality?
Enterprise adoption of blockchain technology has been accelerating at a fervent pace in 2022. Companies are beginning to utilize the blockchain in order to drive greater data and information transparency and veracity across their digital ecosystems. More and more organizations are coming to the realization that the blockchain provides the opportunity for them to deliver value by building trust and improving efficiency across industries. Despite the progress in technological awareness surrounding blockchain, there are still a number of obstacles to overcome before mass adoption of the technology may occur.
Cherry Network, a next-generation blockchain with a focus on scaling, interoperability, and privacy is well-positioned to bridge the chasm between ideation and reality and to provide the catalyst for the next wave of enterprise blockchain adoption.
The State of Blockchain Adoption
In recent years, blockchains, with their revolutionary smart contract technology, have moved from inaccessible technology to becoming a product that is now providing tremendous value to enterprises. 2021 was an exciting year for the space, with many governments, large corporations, and institutional investors taking tangible steps toward adopting and investing in blockchain-related technologies. Despite the market downturn, spending on blockchain solutions by businesses is expected to accelerate even further and hit $11.7 billion USD this year.
Where are these businesses focusing their blockchain spending? Building blockchain infrastructure for multiple use cases, including finance and supply chain management, has become a key trend. Public and private companies alike are researching and implementing automated payment solutions, immutable financial records, banking, trade, logistics, product provenance, and digital identification. Companies are aware that they need to lay the groundwork now by developing tooling that will speed up blockchain adoption in the future.
Corporations are not alone in their exploration of blockchain technology; governments are also warming up to the idea of blockchain adoption. In 2021, El Salvador became the first country to make Bitcoin legal tender, and other countries are following suit. Governments are also exploring decentralized solutions in the healthcare industry, identity management, taxation, voting, compliance/regulatory oversight, and many more areas. That is not to mention the development of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) occurring in a growing number of countries.
While corporate executives and government officials are keen to capitalize on the business benefits of blockchain, research findings show that the use of blockchain technology also has a positive impact on business ethics, corporate governance, and social sustainability due to the creation of a decentralized system with information transparency and traceability.
Blockchain appears to be a win-win for everybody, but there are still major obstacles to mass adoption of the technology.
Obstacles
Blockchain technology faces a plethora of adoption challenges before it is truly fully embraced by enterprises. These issues are not only related to technological inefficiencies but also include problems surrounding awareness, technological know-how, privacy, and a lack of regulations.
The Blockchain Trilemma — finding the right mix between decentralization, scaling, and security — continues to be a major issue hindering the growth of blockchain technology adoption. Bitcoin and other major blockchains are notorious for having inefficient technological designs. Scaling remains a major bottleneck for many layer 1 and layer 2 blockchains, and network congestion is often the result of high on-chain traffic. Not only does the speed of the blockchain suffer, but the chain becomes more costly to interact with, thereby making it less and less appealing. The interoperability, or lack thereof, of various blockchain networks, is also considered a major drawback to be overcome. Without standardization and interoperability, the mass adoption of blockchain has a daunting mountain to scale.
A lack of technological skill sets and awareness are also seen as major roadblocks to mass blockchain adoption. The market for highly-skilled blockchain developers is extremely competitive, and few people have the skills to support such technology. The underlying mechanics of how a blockchain operates is not easy to grasp and is not fully understandable by nontechnical end users, which can include business executives and government officials. As with any other revolutionary technology in its infancy (the computer and the internet come to mind) adoption has been slowed by a lack of understanding and skepticism of the benefits the technology can bring.
Although blockchain transactions maintain anonymity, given its transparent nature, there is a privacy shortcoming for on-chain transactions. Anyone can observe all of the transactions made by any wallet on the blockchain, and sleuths have become particularly adept at pinpointing which wallet addresses belong to which person or entity. In this regard, corporations which may be concerned about sacrificing their trade secrets and sensitive information will be reluctant to adopt blockchain.
Finally, a lack of regulatory clarity from most governments around the globe is hindering blockchain adoption. With a technology that is evolving rapidly, governments are having a difficult time implementing regulations without stifling innovation. This has resulted in a regulatory patchwork, and the lack of governmental support in many jurisdictions is leaving enterprises and other organizations hanging in the lurch.
The Cherry Network Solution
Cherry Network is well-positioned to overcome many of the obstacles hindering blockchain mass adoption among enterprises and other organizations. The Cherry Network has been designed to tackle all of the technical inefficiencies of other blockchains, positioning it to be the go-to public blockchain for enterprise solutions.
Cherry Network utilizes a nominated proof of stake consensus algorithm (NPoS) which limits the number of validator nodes allowing it to scale efficiently with massive transaction throughput. Although the number of block validators is limited by design, the organizations acting as validators are heavily incentivized to ensure the integrity of the blockchain and the accuracy of the transactions recorded on it. Nominators (individuals who back validators by staking their CHER tokens) also help ensure that the validators act in the best interests of the blockchain. The Cherry Network also has integrated zero-knowledge rollups (ZK rollups), which aid in scaling and reducing the transaction finality time.
Interoperability is a key focus of the Cherry Network. The blockchain is a layer 0 relay chain similar to Polkadot, which supports a vast number of parachains and parathreads that all work in unison and can relay (hence the term ‘relay chain’) information between each independent blockchain. On top of that, Cherry is Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible and can therefore interact seamlessly with other EVM chains, thereby capturing that all-important network effect and allowing for a seamless interoperability experience for the user.
The team behind Cherry, including in-house project incubator Cherry Labs, is dedicated to fuelling the next steps of the blockchain revolution. The team has a wealth of experience in the development and marketing of blockchain solutions. It is our goal to enhance the skill sets of aspiring blockchain developers and amateurs through a user-friendly toolkit that can propel anyone to begin building on the Cherry Network. It is also our mission to increase the awareness of blockchain technology and its immense benefits to individuals, enterprises, and governmental organizations through educational resources, in-person meetings, and by simply being available for those seeking information.
Blockchains are ecosystems that require broad adoption to work effectively. Without widespread adoption, the effectiveness and scalability of blockchains will remain limited. Cherry Network is built for mass adoption and is ready to hyperboost the decentralized applications of enterprises.
Get involved!
There are many ways to get involved with the Cherry Community, whether you’re a large or small investor, a developer, or a creator who wishes to join the Cherry Ecosystem.
We have just launched the Cherry Network Mainnet the first decentralized software connecting web3 to trustless file storage. Leverage the unique capabilities of the Cherry infrastructure, and build decentralized applications like never before. Potential partners who are interested in a trustless, business-ready interface to decentralized file systems can get in touch via our social channels or hello@cherry.network to learn more. Among the available opportunities is a spot in our Cherry Labs program, where we incubate innovative startups who build on the Cherry stack.
Join the Cherry Community
If the Cherry mission of providing truly trustless distributed file storage for decentralized applications speaks to you, then get in touch! Read our Cherry Lightpaper, and review our Technical Documentation to delve deeper into the Cherry stack.
We’ve brought together a community of technologists, artists, and creators, and we want you to get involved. If this speaks to you, we invite you to join our growing community.
Follow the official Cherry social media accounts, stay up-to-date with all our news and announcements, and subscribe to the Cherry newsletter.
To learn more about Cherry, visit Cherry.Network
