A long and detailed article published on the McKinsey & Company website discusses the main aspects of blockchain technology. Written by Matt Higginson, Marie-Claude Nadeau and Kausik Rajgopal, the article entitled Blockchain’s Occam problem presents its benefits and challenges. With this excellent title the article analyses the circumstances where blockchain solutions really brings benefits when applied to the business.
The logical principle of Occam Razor is widely used in scientific methods. In a simplified way, it states that simpler solutions tend to be more correct than complex solutions. Therefore, the application of blockchain technology may, in many cases, go against this logical principle. Many business solutions apply this technology in situations where simpler solutions could have the same efficiency. The service recently launched Amazon Managed Blockchain may integrate the list of examples of unnecessary usage.
Some topics about the article
The authors of the article are specialists in business and finance, with extensive experience in the field. Therefore, they do an analysis on the use of blockchain in the market with ownership and mastery of the subject. However, when they approach technical issues, they fall into common sense and make some mistakes. This occurs when it states that “The result is that the number of transactions cannot exceed the limit of any single node” because the record of transactions happens when “50% plus one” of the nodes confirm the transaction.
However, the article and does not focus on technical issues centering in a valuable and depth of business analysis. The article concludes highlighting the need to use blockchain technology in businesses where it really brings value. Issues such as ROI, adoption, and resolution of existing issues are critical in embracing blockchain as a solution. Thus, the invoke of Occam’s Razor can demonstrate the necessity of understand the application of blockchain technology in business beyond the hype.
