In a new survey, IT research and advisory company Gartner has found that there is a scarcity of current blockchain deployments.

Gartner's 2018 CIO Survey was conducted on more than 3,000 CIOs. According to the responses received, majority of CIOs – around 77 percent – said that their organization has no interest in the technology and/or no action planned to investigate or develop it. In addition, 8 percent of CIOs were in short-term planning or active experimentation with blockchain, while only 1 percent of CIOs indicated any kind of blockchain adoption within their organizations.

From an industry perspective, CIOs from telecom, insurance and financial services indicated being more actively involved in blockchain planning and experimentation than CIOs from other industries.

"This year’s Gartner CIO Survey provides factual evidence about the massively hyped state of blockchain adoption and deployment," said David Furlonger, vice president and Gartner Fellow.

Among those who were planning or have already invested in the technology, CIOs said that blockchain requires “most new skills” and that blockchain skills are the most difficult to find. They also said that the technology requires major overhaul in the culture and structure of the IT department. CIOs also said that blockchain implementation would change the existing operating and business model, adding that there is a “challenge in being ready and able to accommodate this requirement.”

"While many industries indicate an initial interest in blockchain initiatives, it remains to be seen whether they will accept decentralized, distributed, tokenized networks, or stall as they try to introduce blockchain into legacy value streams and systems," Furlonger added.