Many would argue that the enthusiasm for blockchain and cryptocurrency is waning. Indeed, according to Gartner’s hype cycle, blockchain is tumbling into the trough of disillusionment where the fleet of Lamborghini’s belonging to early crypto speculators have all but run out of fuel as cryptocurrency prices stabilize and regulators tighten their scrutiny of security-issues masking as initial coin offerings (ICOs) or newfangled ways of getting rich quick. If peak crypto is behind us and the blockchain bubble has burst, where does the promise of this world-changing technology go from here? Time to pack it up or time to reformulate how we think about this technology and the implied digital transformation it necessitates? Will blockchain go the way of early electric car prototypes only to lay dormant for 40 years before a Tesla comes along? Will cloud-based spreadsheets masquerading as blockchains temper enthusiasm for the value of technology investments? Many questions remain, but one thing is certain, fully harnessing blockchain has less to do with technology and more to do with advances in management thought and the art of the possible.

The argument that the blockchain bubble has burst made vociferously by the likes of Nouriel Roubini in a Senate hearing, misses a couple of key points. The first and foremost being that the technology has only come out of beta in 2017, despite bitcoin and its underlying public blockchain turning 10 this year. Since, in addition to the pilot projects being carried out by the 50 largest companies in the world (with some industries opting for “coopetition”), there is a growing cadre of blockchain-based projects gaining serious global recognition for their potential to change the fundamental nature for how economies and essential services are organized. Unlike the internet, which is a disruptive technology borrowing from Clayton Christensen’s thinking on disruptive innovation, blockchain is very much an augmenting technology. For this power to be unlocked, however, companies, entrepreneurs, technologists and policymakers need to do the unthinkable – relinquish control. This much is demanded by the market and the constituent parts of the global economy that have been telling us one thing in increasingly louder voices, they do not trust status quo or the traditional centralized structures that gain the most from it.