Blockchain Fails to Gain Traction in the Enterprise

Blockchain, the technology underpinning bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies, for years has been viewed by some companies as a way to drive industry-transforming projects, among them the tracking of assets through complex supply chains.

So far, that hasn’t happened.

The latest effort to run aground was that of A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S and International Business Machines Corp., which hoped to follow shipments via the blockchain. Last month, Maersk said the project would be discontinued. Another big effort, Walmart Inc.’s attempt to track groceries on the blockchain, continues, but slowly.

“There’s not one company that has really shown, let’s say, a material change,” Francesco Bozzano, vice president of the corporate finance group at Moody’s Investors Service, said of blockchain efforts in supply chains.