In February 2021, the US blockchain media Coindesk quoted 4 people familiar with the matter as revealing that IBM will abolish the blockchain department, and Jerry Cuomo, the head of IBM blockchain, has also been transferred and given a new role.
Subsequently, IBM public relations director Holli Haswell came forward to deny the rumor and reiterated that Big Blue remains committed to developing the blockchain ecosystem and services. But IBM did launch a series of "Resource Actions," according to insiders, and Haswell admitted to realigning some leaders and business units to continue driving growth.
People familiar with the matter analyzed the reasons and believed that since 2016, IBM has invested a lot of money in the blockchain and has high expectations for it to change the future business model of the industry. But as far as the actual effect is concerned, IBM's blockchain innovation work is now limited to some research and development, and has not even extended to consulting.
In terms of projects such as FoodTrust for Walmart food traceability launched by Big Blue, TradeLens for Maersk Container Logistics, and TrustYourSupplier job title email list network for supply chain management, they are just a icing on the cake in the original industry information system, rather than changing business. model.
Ethereum Buterin bluntly said that IBM's various enterprise-level blockchain applications "missed the point" and "wasted time". There are also many views in the industry that IBM's layout is not a real blockchain. In addition, due to the impact of the epidemic, IBM's overall revenue will drop by 6% in 2020, so Big Blue's adjustment to the blockchain department is easy to understand.
The troubles of the blockchain business model are not limited to IBM alone. The development dilemma of the domestic blockchain industry is even more obvious. Not long ago, the 2020 annual report of Yijian, the first blockchain company, was released, showing a direct loss of 11.5 billion. Yuan, the company’s net assets have directly changed from 8.6 billion to negative 3.5 billion. Yijian, which was once famous for its blockchain supply chain finance, has a market value of over 20 billion yuan.