Blockchain problems from the users’ point of view

To date, the Blockchain technology claimed one of the biggest inventions since the start of the Internet, enjoys a huge amount of hype in the market. No wonder that the interest in Blockchain, being the secure distributed ledger, is increasing exponentially. As it frequently happens with the new technologies, its success is sometimes overshadowed by the limited capabilities and some important issues that need to be discussed.

Disruptive Innovation

Explaining Blockchain, it should be noted that to a certain extent this technology today is something similar to the Internet in 1994. Only a limited number of enthusiasts used it. Still, Blockchain is as disruptive as the Internet has been. Like any latest innovation, the Blockchain technology is supposed to solve a number of significant problems, but meanwhile, it also brings a lot of difficulties.

An increasing amount of data concerning the Blockchain technology is becoming available on the Internet. That’s why it’s now more and more complicated to look into details. The question then arises: How can we deal with this issue?

So we’ve tried to answer a lot of questions which may appear while getting to know Blockchain. It will be useful either for users or for professionals who want to use this technology in the projects and to find the solutions to the problems their clients can face.

Vocabulary Vortex

The first and the most essential challenge dealing with Blockchain is a lack of awareness of the system, primarily in fields other than banking or IT, and a lack of understanding of how it works. In some aspects, it doesn’t simply address the users’ opportunities — a common problem of all emerging technologies. It takes place also because it involves an entirely new vocabulary. The most asked questions on Google deal with the exploring the essence of the technology: What is mining, decentralization, ICO, token, smart contract? And the list goes on. Moreover, the interdisciplinary nature of Blockchain has contributed to this problem, as it overlaps with economics, computer science, etc. bringing their own vocabulary.

Awareness and Understanding

But it’s important to mention that it concerns not only ordinary users. According to the BBC research, even the FinTech projects, being the most innovative companies, often face challenges concerning Blockchain. On this evidence, only 23 percent of them are proficient in this technology. On the contrary, 77 percent of these companies are aimed at implementing Blockchain into the business by 2020. Still, the low degree of the technology diffusion is another point here. The latest report highlights that in September 2017 there were only 15 million of the Blockchain users. And it’s indeed a relatively small number.

That’s why if you want to implement Blockchain into your business you should take into account that decisions about the Blockchain applications adoption need to be carefully thought through as they continue to be misunderstood.

In order to facilitate such processes, we’ve created the SmartChain platform that enables you to work with Blockchain and take advantage of it by means of rethinking the ways of the interaction with it. SmartChain is the world’s first platform providing an infrastructure that is aimed to easily integrate any Blockchain into business.

New Realities

As we’ve said, some concepts concerning Blockchain are rather difficult-to-understand ones. Let’s take the example of previously mentioned smart contracts. For some people the idea alone is not perfectly clear, not speaking of writing them. Thus, it’s important to notice that smart contracts are embedded in digital code, so you need to know a programming language to write them.

Note that, while using SmartChain, you can work without any code. We offer an extensive base of ready-made smart contracts that cover 90% of business needs. The user-friendly Drag and Drop editor is also available so that you can easily create new smart contracts and use them in everyday life more actively.

Efficiency and Cost

In order to adopt the technology more and more effectively, it’s strongly necessary to get into the other problems the users can face. And they are, by and general, highly specific. Let us stop on some performance issues and transactions costs. As it is known, nature of Blockchain is peer-to-peer; it means that all transactions can only be completed when all parties involved update their ledgers. It may take hours. Moreover, as the volume of transactions increases, transactions processing lasts longer and this fact, thus, considerably bogs down the network. This delay definitely creates too much uncertainty for the participants. As for the financial angle, we should notice that if the network gets too crowded, the cost of a single transaction may increase significantly. Indeed, the demand for the Blockchain technology is experiencing a tremendous rise, which may result in much higher costs. So, it follows that Blockchain still has a lot to prove in its performance.

Regarding the outlined issues, let us note that using SmartChain you don’t depend on Blockchain and can switch between the platforms or use several ones at once. It means that if one network is collapsed or if the transactions in one ecosystem increase, you can choose another one that is more convenient for you at this or that moment.

Advice? Focus on providing better support

Returning to implementation, it’s important to consider that at the time of the production your company can face the system bugs which were not detected during QA testing. It’s crucial to listen and learn from users. It might involve some particular users’ devices and browsers. Mix in all the other clients’ problems like, for instance, lost brainkeys, misunderstanding of the revenue generation method and how to convert cryptocurrency to cash, etc. — and it’s clear that in order to speak the same language with the users the highly qualified support is necessary.

It can be illustrated by the experience of SmartChain. It provides support which is 24/7 responsive to be sure that every question is answered and every client is satisfied. Another relevant fact is that we give access to transactions tracking in your account to stay fully informed.

As we’ve shown, the Blockchain technology represents a total shift away from the traditional ways of doing things. No wonder that it brings a lot of issues for common users and companies. Consequently, it can hinder the innovation process and put a strain on the overall business. But with a thoughtful approach, you can be a pioneer, as the technology is still in its infancy, as well as develop and implement your successful ideas helping people around. Blockchain can revolutionize business and you can become a part of it.