Data analysis and research company CB Insights has published "The Blockchain Report 2020", broadly considered financing and deals, general industry themes, the impact COVID-19 and what's next. The Report is available for download in full here.
The Report is dominated by analysis of the funding and deal flow in blockchain in 2019, compared to previous years. Interestingly, the Report finds that the fast majority of VC funding has flowed to cryptocurrency companies rather than enterprise blockchain companies (loose definitions to one side).
While the Report considers that this means that "crypto not blockchain is winning", this may just reflect the commercial reality that VC's are generally looking for 100x returns, which are generally easier to find in companies building consumer-facing products rather than back-end infrastructure.
The Report also finds that FinTech leaders in non-blockchain industries are increasingly expanding into offering crypto-centric products, noting in particular that the famour commission-free robinhood has expanded its crypto exchange offering into 8 additional US states.
Lastly, the Report finds that despite a widespread belief that Bitcoin is a safe haven asset, the market disruption caused by coronavirus has shown that Bitcoin continues to show the same risk attributes as the wider S&P index, as below:
The Reports also emphasises the growing interest in Central Bank Digital Currencies, particularly from central banks, which we have written about extensively and which represent one of the more exciting areas for development of digital currencies. See more pieces on that here.