Assessment of Blockchain Technology Impact on Russian Market

Blockchain is considered as one of the most promising disruptive technologies and described as the next revolution in transaction or event recording; its potential is often compared with the Internet’s impact. Indeed, expectations are high while possible impact is not clear. The goal of this paper was to identify potentially viable and scalable areas for blockchain application in Russia across 5 sectors: financial services; insurance; health, energy and public sector. The findings of the research indicated that Russian market participants mostly consider blockchain as the way to reduce operating costs and improve efficiency of the existing offerings. Practical implications of blockchain in Russia will be limited to the advanced data storage, proceeding and exchange; compliance with the requirements and identity verification. Among 5 analyzed sectors Russian insurers have more chances to reduce their costs applying blockchain compared with the stakeholders from the other sectors. However, on the country level economic impact of the technology will be quite moderate.