Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank of Russia: Blockchain will take three to four years to become a true legend

The deputy chairperson of the Russian Central Bank has poured cold water on the enthusiastic fans of blockchain, saying that it will take several years for blockchain to be used in the banking industry.

At the Russian Banking Conference this week, the financial industry was very interested in blockchain technology, and the deputy chairman of the Central Bank, Olga Skorobogatova, expressed her views on the issue.

(Olga Skorobogatova, Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank of Russia)

Skorobogatova highlighted that 2015 was the year when interest in distributed ledger technology (DLT) “exploded.” However, she added that as research progressed, regulators and businesses alike discovered the risks and pitfalls of the innovation.

Skorobogatova did not elaborate on what these deficiencies were, but said:

The myth about blockchain (the impossible thing) is that everything is ready to take action, blockchain will reduce costs and we don’t have to go to the bank anymore. It turns out that this is just a myth.

She said that it will take at least 3 to 4 years to study and understand blockchain technology.

Skorobogatova is not an opponent of blockchain. On the contrary, she has said that the potential of blockchain technology far exceeds that of Bitcoin and is a distributed data storage method.

At the Blockchain Conference in April, Skorobogatova mentioned that a “hybrid” network consisting of public and private blockchains could become a distributed ledger for building a national digital currency.

At the time, Skorobogatova also suggested that Russia form a blockchain consortium similar to R3, focusing on exploring the application of the technology in Russia.

The central bank has also listed several technologies that will benefit the banking industry, including cloud storage, biometric information, the Internet of Things (IoT), big data and artificial intelligence (AI).