The first quarter of 2016 saw a number of notable changes in the blockchain industry, the most obvious and contentious of which may have been the evolving language used to describe the industry itself.
Once termed the "bitcoin industry", such a definition no longer seems adequate in describing the breadth of innovation being pursued by industry innovators on technologies that increasingly diverge from the original implementation of blockchain technology, bitcoin.
In addition to the entrepreneurs building on the bitcoin blockchain, the quarter provided ample validation for alternative blockchain-based projects, ranging from the expansion of permissioned distributed ledger efforts to the launch of Ethereum, an alternative public blockchain that enables functionalities like smart contracts .
As a result, CoinDesk introduced its latest State of Blockchain report with a new taxonomy and conceptual framework for looking at the industry, one that positions the ongoing innovations in private blockchain technology and public blockchains as comparable to intranets and the Internet, respectively.
The shift was in line with many major developments for the quarter, which saw bitcoin steadily grow its hashing power and user base while blockchain technology solutions for the financial industry stole a majority of the spotlight. 1. VC interest rebounds
Following three quarters of declines in both total industry funding and average deal size, the blockchain industry saw a reversal of this trend in Q1. VC firms invested $160m in blockchain ventures during the quarter, up from $26m the previous quarter. Further, average deal size rose from $2.6m to $11.4m. Overall, the figure arguably represents the strongest quarter for funding in more than a year.
The $160m figure is higher than four of the five previous quarters, with Q1 2015 being the exception, a total that includes all of the $116m in VC funding raised by 21 Inc, though this capital was likely raised over […]
