Linda Pawczuk, the principal at Deloitte Consulting, one of the “Big Four” multinational professional services firms, recently said that her clients have expressed concerns about the numerous scams associated with initial coin offerings (ICOs).
Pawczuk, who helps companies integrate distributed ledger technology (DLT) into their existing software systems, revealed that executives and board members have been questioning the legitimacy of the blockchain industry, as there have been an increasing number of fraudulent crypto-related schemes.
Bad Actors Giving Blockchain A Bad Name
As the leader of Deloitte’s US Financial Services Industry Blockchain group, Pawczuk focuses on establishing business relations with clients looking to implement DLT-based systems. However, she told Coindesk:
The boards are asking us about it because it’s in the news for bad actors, and boards are nervous that blockchain is affiliated with bitcoin and altcoins and ICOs, and what do boards do to protect their investors? So it hasn’t helped us, the association with the bad actors.
Pawczuk acknowledged that regulators throughout the world have begun to investigate and clamp down on fraudulent activities, however, she still has to clarify during business meetings “why [companies] shouldn’t be concerned about the security of information [on a blockchain].”
S&P 500 Executives Now Less Interested In Blockchain
After spending three years working with Deloitte’s clients in the insurance sector and actively participating in The Institutes RiskBlock Alliance (a blockchain consortium of 30 organizations), Pawczuk believes DLT has the potential to improve the efficiency of many traditional business processes.
Interestingly, a recent report published by Axios noted: “S&P 500 executives are dropping blockchain buzzwords less on earnings calls and during presentations to analysts and investors. Analysts are also asking about it less.”
Going on to cite Forrester Research, Axios’ blog post stated that the blockchain “hype” is over, and that the reality is bitcoin “was never as popular” as DLT – because the flagship cryptocurrency was mentioned far less during business meetings (throughout 2018) than blockchain technology.
Despite all the recent negativity in the crypto space, and the large number of scams, Pawczuk remarked:
The fact that bitcoin is a real use case landed global appeal, got people to focus on blockchain. We would never be talking about process capabilities like blockchain, and the disruption of blockchain, had it not been for bitcoin.
