In a recent survey, EY has found regulatory complexity as the greatest barrier to widespread blockchain adoption.

EY conducted a poll of senior professionals who attended the EY Global Blockchain Summit in New York. The key takeaways of the survey are:

• 61% of respondents say complex regulation is the biggest barrier to widespread blockchain adoption, followed by integration with legacy technology (51%) and a lack of general understanding of blockchain's capabilities (49%).
• 37% respondent cite changes to regulation as the primary driver for the integration of blockchain technology into the broader enterprise ecosystem, followed by adoption of blockchain as a digital currency by top companies (23%) and acceptance of the technology among central banks (18%).
• Almost one-third of respondents (28%) expect the US to see the greatest adoption of blockchain globally within the next two years, followed by China which ranked second with 18%, Japan ranked third with 13% and the UK fourth with 12%.
• 60% respondents expect the financial/professional services industry to see the most blockchain breakthroughs in the next two years.
• 28% respondents believe increased operational efficiencies is the main advantage of blockchain technology, followed by a high level of transparency (18%) and trust in data integrity (16%).

In addition, EY announced four upcoming transitions for blockchain technology, which it anticipates will drive the technology’s growth to become a standard enterprise tool.

Paul Brody, EY Global Innovation Leader, Blockchain Technology, explains:

"As blockchain adoption ramps up, we see four transitions driving the technology's maturity. These are, one, transitioning from private to public networks to create an open system for all users; two, shifting from synchronization to tokenization to improve accuracy and reduce risk; three, moving from cryptocurrency to tokenized fiat currency to transfer value on public networks; and four, shifting from parallel separate systems to integration with laws and regulation from central banks and governments. With these developments blockchain could become fully operationalized into enterprises, leading to a surge in applications across industries."