Russian business news agency Prime has reported that the First Deputy Governor of the Russian Central Bank, Olga Skorobogatova, has stated publicly that blockchain technology is still too immature to be rolled out on an industrial scale.
“In the world there is still no big industrial solution on distributed ledgers, except for bitcoins…This is mainly due to the fact that the technology is not mature enough…it still requires a lot of improvements both from a security view point and in terms of scalability,” she said.
Skorobogatova made the comments at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on the weekend.
She said enterprise blockchain tech can be divided into two “subspecies.” The first is a payment settlement system like Ripple which can be used to expedite cross border money transmissions by converting the balances to ripple tokens on its faster network rather than converting to USD on the SWIFT system. Converting currencies on SWIFT is relatively slow and the system reportedly privileges the US dollar, especially when a currency has few direct trading pairs. Skorobogatova was the lead on a Ripple pilot project in Russia.
The other is a blockchain that can handle smart contracts, so far fairly simple automated contracts governing conditions for the release of payments. Ethereum and Hyperledger blockchain have been designed to accommodate smart contracts though both projects are still undergoing tests.
This is not the first time Skorobogatova has expressed skepticism about stories of pervasive disruption blockchains would imminently enact.
In 2016 she told an audience at an international banking forum that it would take another 3-4 years of study before the implications of blockchain would be broadly understood, let alone implemented:
“Last year there was an explosion of interest in the distributed registry. This year, the situation and rhetoric have changed. Many regulators and companies, immersed in the topic, found a lot of imperfections and risk areas. (The) myth of the blockchain, that everything is ready and you can go, reduce costs and abandon banks, it was just a myth.”
Skorobogatova’s comments echo those of American Bitcoin developer Jimmy Song who has repeatedly stated that the only bona fide use case for blockchain so far is Bitcoin.
In her latest comments, Skorobogatova did say that she thinks 2018 will be something of a watershed year, where people around the world, “will pass under the theme of practical understanding.”
Still, Skorobogatova is pragmatic. “Technology for the sake of technology is pointless.”
Skorobogatova was reportedly the first Russian official to publicly propose a national cryptocurrency, or “cryptoruble” for Russia. She did so in 2016.