Data61, a part of Australia’s innovation catalyst CSIRO, has released a comprehensive review on blockchain technology and its potential adoptions across government and industry in Australia.

The review aims to deliver productivity benefits and foster innovation in the country. CSIRO’s Data61 has delivered two reports on the regulatory, technical and societal implications of utilizing blockchain-powered systems across industries.

“The pace of change we are experiencing as a nation is exponential and we can’t afford to be followers in the adoption of emerging technology like blockchain. It has potential to reframe existing industries like financial services and seed new ones like food provenance and personalized health,” Adrian Turner, Chief Executive of CSIRO’s Data61 said.

The first report emphasizes on four likely blockchain adoption scenarios in Australia in 2030 that includes aspirational, transformative, new equilibrium and collapse. This was developed by Rob Hanson and Dr. Stefan Hajkowicz from Data61’s Strategic Insight Team.

“Scenarios allow decision makers to consider if similar possibilities were to occur, what they should do to prepare for the future ahead of time. Most importantly, each scenario examines the aspects of critical uncertainty for the use of blockchain technologies; human behaviour, technology and development, regulation and user adoption,” Hanson stated.

On the other hand, the second report takes hold of a technical approach and scenario and explores design alternatives for blockchain systems in three use cases namely remittance payments, open data registries and agricultural supply chains.

The overall study stated that the path towards widespread adoption of blockchain based systems is still not clear and that further research is needed to prove that blockchain technology will work as intended and that how they will operate with legacy systems.

The review stated that further blockchain trials would demonstrate responses to ‘rainy day’ scenarios when problems arise including disputed transactions, incorrect addresses, exposure or loss of private keys, among others.