• Digital assets will make a “strong alternative to or replacement for” fiat in the next 5-10 years.
• The biggest challenges to crypto and blockchain adoption are cybersecurity, regulation, and financial infrastructure, most respondents say.

Digital assets will be a “strong alternative to or replacement for” fiat in the next five to ten years. This is the opinion of 76 percent of global financial services industry (FSI) executives in Deloitte’s 2021 Global Blockchain Survey. Additionally, 78 percent of these respondents said digital assets will be relevant to their industry in the next 2 years. They will, therefore, lose some competitive advantage should they fail to implement blockchain technology and digital assets.

Of note, the survey was conducted on 1,280 senior executives and practitioners between March 24 and April 10. A third of the respondents were US-based. The rest came from Brazil, China Mainland, Germany, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, Singapore, South Africa, the UAE, and the UK. The research aimed at gaining insights on “overall attitudes and investments in blockchain and digital assets.”

According to the survey, many respondents also agree that blockchain tech is broadly scalable and has achieved mainstream adoption. “Custody of digital assets” and “new payment channels or types” stood out as the most potential digital asset use cases.

Perception of digital assets

The biggest stumbling blocks to cryptocurrency adoption were cybersecurity, regulation, and financial infrastructure. For further blockchain adoption, changes have to be made to data security and privacy regulation 68 percent of participants noted.

Respondents also included executives who were already utilizing blockchain and/or crypto assets in their core business. Labeled “pioneers”, these respondents more commonly identified regulation, privacy, and cybersecurity as barriers to acceptance.

Of the above, 70 percent said the greatest impact of digital assets would be access to funding sources. The second most common response was “compliance and transparency.”

Additionally, the survey covered the potential benefit of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Most respondents gave protection from data harvesting from big tech and other private firms as their answer. Other leading features of CBDCs were innovation and ease of use. The greatest concern in holding or transacting CBDCs, especially among FSI pioneers, was the ability to safely custody the cryptocurrency. The next most common answer was the tax and legal implications of the same.

Blockchain utility

Moreover, respondents were asked to give the top use cases of blockchain according to their firms. The top three responses were security information exchange, digital currency, and asset tracking and management. Furthermore, even though many respondents valued digital identity for its verification abilities, pioneers mostly saw it as a way to foster financial inclusion.

Despite challenges posed in the blockchain and digital asset space, most results of the survey point to increased crypto acceptance. The US and China continue to push for regulatory oversight in the crypto and blockchain industry. However, this has the potential to further advance adoption, according to some industry experts. The crypto user base also increased from 100M in January to over 220M in June 2021, Crypto.com shows.