Problemas com o Blockchain

Blockchain é a tecnologia por trás do Bitcoin. Essa tecnologia pode acabar com boa parte dos trabalhos de contadores e auditores. Mas até o momento ela tem vários problemas que impedem sua adoção em larga escala:

1) É muito complicado.

The technology behind blockchain is complex enough. Add it to the complexity of a heavily regulated business environment, and blockchain may not even get out of the gate. “Blockchain is thus also turning out to be more complicated than most of us thought,” warns Kris Henley, communications manager with the Centre for the Digital Economy at the University of Surrey. “Its tremendous potential is mitigated by its steadfast resistance to being a ‘magic’ solution, and its need for regulation like so many game-changing technologies of the Digital Economy.”

Optimas’ Pierron chimes in as well. “Processing trades via blockchain would not simplify the capital markets, but rather move the complexity around,” he adds.

2) Pode aumentar os custos de transações

By disintermediating financial institutions, so the reasoning goes, multiple parties can conduct transactions seamlessly, without paying a commission. However, cost savings are dubious. “Moving cash equity markets to a blockchain infrastructure would drive a significant increase of the overall transaction cost,” Pierron continues. “Trading on a blockchain system would also be slower than traders would tolerate, and mistakes might be irreversible, potentially bringing huge losses.”

3)Problemas de desempenho

Because of its inherently distributed, peer-to-peer nature, blockchain-based transactions can only complete when all parties update their respective ledgers – a process that might take hours. As ledgers grow, furthermore, people question whether they will bog down. “Blockchain has a lot to prove in its performance,” says Peter Hiom, deputy CEO at the ASX trading exchange.

The transaction delay may also be a deal-killer. “The delay before the final assurance that a transaction has been recorded ‘for good,’ that can be up to a couple of hours, would create too much uncertainty for market participants, especially during time of high volatility,” continues Pierron.

4) Imutabilidade dos registros nem sempre é bom

One of blockchain’s most touted benefits is the immutability of its ledgers: once participants record a transaction, no one can change or delete it. Such immutability prevents the correction of mistakes to be sure – but there are other issues as well.


In fact, immutability may cause blockchain to run afoul of regulation. “Digital ledger technologies must be chosen based on user needs and legal requirements,” writes the Open Data Institute. “For example; tamper-proof and immutable data stores prevent the modification of stored data, but this may not always be an acceptable property. The EU ‘right to be forgotten’ requires the complete removal of information; if that data is in an unchangeable system like a blockchain, this could be impossible.”

5) Adoção insuficiente

The promise of blockchain in large part depends upon enough parties using the same implementation of the technology – a classic example of the network effect. However, it’s unclear any particular blockchain solution (other than Bitcoin itself) will ever be able to reach this threshold.

Without such universal adoption, blockchain’s practicality is questionable. “It’s obvious that a credit union-only distributed ledger system will require universal adoption to be of any use,” says John San Filippo, cofounder and principal at OmniChannel Communications. “It’s my experience that trying to achieve universal adoption of anything in this industry is an act of pure futility.

6) Possibilidade de fraude

The fraud weakness lies at the transaction endpoints. By the term ‘endpoint’ I mean the boundary between physical space, where living, breathing human beings exist, and cyber-space, where the blockchain databases reside. The endpoint is where physical space users interact with the cyber-space blockchain.

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