2021, the year of public blockchains?

PwC data shows a growing trend among French companies to launch blockchain projects on public registers.

Public blockchains, darling of French companies in 2021? At least they are gaining strength, according to PwC.

The consulting firm claims to see “for the first time” that most projects launched in a year (2020) are based on this type of blockchain.
Majority until then, consortium blockchains decline accordingly. The trend is also valid, we are told, for pure players than for “traditional” businesses.

Among the latter, consortium blockchains represented on average 60% of projects until 2018. The proportion now stands at 33%. PwC invites us to put this decline in perspective with the governance issues involved in this type of “semi-private” registry.

Three public blockchains stand out. Topping the list, Ethereum. However, its position is no longer as dominant. Not so much because of Bitcoin as of Tezos, which enjoys some recognition from the public authorities in France.

Finance remains in the foreground

PwC supports its comments with testimonials from regulatory authorities in particular. Among them, the AMF (Autorité des marchés financiers).
The latter returns, among other things, to two initiatives of the European Union. On the one hand, a pilot scheme for the issuance of financial instruments on blockchain. On the other, the MICA regulation (Market in Crypto Assets), relating to other types of cryptoassets. In both cases, she invites the EU to take more account of aspects related to public blockchains.

The AMF also addresses the issue of decentralized finance. With the main applications being P2P loans and market making (crypto-asset exchange) automated. PwC sees these applications as a lever to merge the classic infrastructure of financial markets and public blockchains, through the ecosystem of tokens that develops there.

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