For Quick Wins, Focus on Decentralization Within Existing Businesses

Tal Kol is the co-founder of Orbs, a public blockchain bringing enterprise solutions and transparency to businesses.

While hundreds of blockchain startups launched during the 2017-2018 peak, many of their use-cases for decentralization were not strong enough to survive the ensuing crypto winter.

Even with established companies involved in the space, there's a prevailing feeling that blockchain has been slow to deliver on its full promise, especially among mainstream businesses.

Up until now, enterprise blockchain has been completely focused on private DLTs that cannot deliver on the full potential blockchain has to offer.

Blockchain technology allows enterprise firms to compete on trust, but the current infrastructure solutions that facilitate digital trust were built for decentralized applications looking to "Cut the middleman" and not for the middleman itself.

As a result, most enterprise solutions today miss out on what is truly disruptive about blockchain and where the big value lies.

For the industry to continue to advance and mature, businesses need to begin using blockchain in a different way, bringing what public blockchain does best as an external, unbiased third-party verification and applying it to their enterprise-specific needs.

Instead of trying to create new solutions to replace existing businesses with decentralized ones, startups should focus on improving existing businesses using decentralization.

Instead of focusing on the absolute decentralization of businesses, as the first wave of blockchain startups did, they have the opportunity to develop the value-adds mainstream businesses want but can't or won't invest in themselves.

The key will be developing features that use blockchain in a creative manner and increase its usefulness, making it easier for enterprises from Uber to Twitter to understand how permissionless infrastructure can provide return-on-investment.