Is Blockchain the next digital economy platform?

As we see the exponential rise in the use of blockchain technologies, many are asking is this the next digital economy platform. So before we can answer this question we need a structure for the types of digital economy platforms. The 5 New Patterns for Innovation provides a framework exploring the potential value.

Pattern	Role of Blockchain	Value to be captured
Product Augmentation	Capture history of product design, manufacture and usage	Product enhancement, offer services to enhance product experience
Codify Services	Capture audit trail of usage	Limited value – possibly simplify billing
Interconnect Industries	Be the trusted platform to share data across the industries	Optimisation of the interactions by removing friction
Trade Data	Capture audit trail of how insights were derived	Could create
Digitise Assets	Capture audit trail of usage	Limited value..

In essence the blockchain has most value in creating an open trusted ledger for interactions that span multiple organisation boundaries. The analysis published in the “4 Trillion Dollar Challenge” provides a view of the industries where there is potential value from the blockchain technologies. This leads me to believe that blockchain is likely to disrupt many if not all interactions across multiple organisations and so is likely to be a s very significant platform in the digital economy in the future.