As 2018 draws to an end, some industry experts who use blockchain technology have shared insight on what to expect of the budding technology in the coming year. Though their views cut across several aspects of the crypto industry, they agree that blockchain would see an implementation trend in 2019.

For the co-founder of Social Alpha Foundation, Nydia Zhang, the coming year would see various blockchain projects being rolled out by the world’s biggest aid organisations. Ranging from supply chain, identity, transparency, and governance, she says these rollouts will boost the true value of blockchain.

“2019 will be the year blockchain hits the big time with organisations like the UN, World Bank, and major global philanthropies taking major stakes in using blockchain technology to anchor their initiatives,” Zhang said. “The price crash in crypto has created a window of focus on the underlying technology that will drive opportunity for billions of unbanked and excluded lives.”

She added that a crypto market rebound may not return soon but a record blockchain adoption from the world’s biggest banks, internet companies and even smaller governments is likely.

The CEO of Zilliqa too shares that the industry will see “a wave of widespread use cases in 2019 as organisations looking to implement and develop blockchain applications become more focused.”

Xinshu Dong says: “So it is very likely that we will see some compelling use cases emerge. As entrepreneurs and enterprises introduce and implement blockchain technology, a major stumbling block the industry faces is the balance between scalability and security. 2019 may indeed be the year we address the existing challenges, see traction for the technology beyond the testnet phase, and welcome many far-reaching dApps.”

A founding partner at NEO Global Capital takes it a notch higher. Roger Lim notes that projects will move away from a “blockchain-for-everything” approach to implementation next year.

Lim says: “We will see a more sophisticated industry emerge across a variety of sectors, including identity solutions, gaming and, financial services, — one that has tremendous potential, both jointly and autonomously, for cryptocurrency and its underlying technology. With competitiveness rising, the blockchain industry is bound to undergo some sort of consolidation and the projects best equipped with a “survival of the fittest” mentality are the most likely to succeed.”

He expects to see more academia-related efforts in the coming year citing R&D works by institutions like the University of California and the National University of Singapore’s CRYSTAL (Cryptocurrency Strategy, Techniques, and Algorithms) Centre to propel the entire blockchain ecosystem.