Blockchain technology has witnessed an exponential growth over the past few years and an unprecedented adoption rate globally triggered by the current pandemic.

Size of the blockchain technology market worldwide from 2018 to 2025(in billion U.S. dollars) | Source: Statista 

It has the potential to be a conduit for economic development and have a long lasting impact from a societal and environmental perspective. The total market size is expected to reach a valuation of $176B by 2025 and $3.1T by 2030 with a CAGR at or above 70% with slight variations depending on the domain (finance, retail, supply chain etc).

However, in order to achieve large scale adoption and long term sustainability we would need to apply lessons learned from other digital technologies. One of the major lessons learned from implementing other digital technologies is to deploy design thinking to create a human-centered blockchain ecosystem.

The Evolution of Blockchain | Source: Gartner

Why design thinking? It would address the main barriers encountered so far in large scale blockchain adoption. By designing blockchain ecosystems that abide by the foundational principles of design thinking we could ensure optimal adoption, optimal interoperability, least resistance to adoption and high user engagement. Thinking big, acting small and implement rapid prototyping seems uniquely suited for the uncertain and volatile post-pandemic economic environment.

Dedicating time upfront to understand and keep customer needs at the center of the development process we could ensure long term sustainability across the blockchain lifecycle and an optimized human centered blockchain ecosystem.