136  Blockchain

a few. However, blockchain regulations globally are still being devel-

oped. Due to the sudden growth of blockchain technologies such as

blockchain products, Crypto currencies, tokenisation, NFTs (non-fun-

gible token), DeFi (decentralised finance), DAO (decentralised autono-

mous organisation) and CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency), a lot

of existing financial and non-financial regulations needs to be changed

to incorporate the similar governance for new technologies and a new

way of doing business. This is causing a lot of regulatory uncertainty

and concerns for businesses to adopt blockchain. Businesses need to

carefully monitor the evolution of regulatory laws as regulators try to

learn and encompass the existing laws for blockchain.

• Audit/Compliance concerns: Audit and compliance are also a big con-

cern for businesses when it comes to allocating their budget towards

blockchain. Any blockchain project needs to comply with local regu-

larity laws before going live. As the regulatory environment matures,

businesses need to adopt and make sure to comply with local and

global laws. For instance, blockchain projects need to comply with

data protection, Cyber, Anti-money laundering (AML) and know

your customer (KYC) laws as per the local and global jurisdiction of

the company offices as well as customers.

• Data protection regulation concerns: Several data protection

laws have been established in the past few years. Some of the big

ones are GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and CCPA

(California Consumer Privacy Act). These laws were put in place to

protect customers’ PII (Personally Identifiable Information) data.

Business

Problem

Description

Pandemic

Business impact due to Pandemic or An act of God

Demographic

Change

Population growth, ratio of young and old population, culture shift, ratio of rich and poor

Fintech and new

startups

Competition from new startups and fintechs

Digitalisation

Challenges from digitalization on way of working and shift in customers purchasing habits

Innovation

Challenges from disruptive innovation in technology

Globalisation

Impact from globalisation whereby world is within close reach

Resiliency

Business models need to be changed to incorporate resiliency in each process

Concentration

risks

Business process need to have less reliance on single entity. Don’t put all your eggs in the same

basket

Cost

More pressure on businesses to reduce run cost to carry out BAU (Business as Usual) activities

and divert more budget toward change budget for innovation

Skills

Challenges on hiring appropriate skilled workforce

Figure 5.1  Business problems.