Report: 57% of large firms deploying or mulling bitcoin solutions (+ video)

Large companies are moving to embrace bitcoin, or blockchain, technology despite a variety of challenges facing cryptocurrency, a new survey finds.

Nearly 60 percent of these large firms – identified as having 20,000 or more employees – expect to join the blockchain bandwagon or explore the technology by the end of 2018, says research firm Juniper.

Nearly 400 executives responded to the survey, results of which were announced Monday.

The survey comes just as a crisis within the bitcoin industry is averted – for the time being.

Many firms already have proof-of-concept programs underway.

VIDEO: Watch an overview about bitcoins at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7opj5-32hw

What firms might benefit most fro blockchain? Juniper says those that have:

A need for transparency and clarity in (trans)actions;
A current dependence on paper-based legacy storage systems;
A high volume of transmitted information.

But there are challenges still to be addressed.

“[W]hile awareness of blockchain and its benefits had increased dramatically in the past 12-18 months, there was the danger that companies might seek to deploy blockchain without having first considered alternative options,” Juniper says.

Windsor Holden, author of the Juniper research, points out: “In many cases, systemic change, rather than technological, might be a better and cheaper solution than blockchain, which could potentially cause significant internal and external disruption.”

Challenges include: