A number of financial institutions and private investors have devoted significant time and financial resources to looking at ways to monetize the blockchain technology, but to date only the bitcoin payments system has achieved even modest adoption.

While a number of financial institutions believe that blockchain will evolve into a more efficient medium for transferring value or ownership of assets, in fact the elegance and simplicity of blockchain as illustrated by bitcoin may also be the most daunting obstacle to broader adoption.

Despite an enormous amount of hype and investment going back nearly a decade, blockchain remains an elegant but costly technology in search of real world relevance beyond the initial application of digital cash exchange.

Eoin Treacy's view

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Anyone with even a modicum of libertarian spirit will appreciate blockchain for dispensing with third parties by allowing peer to peer transactions on a global basis that occur outside the ability of governments to tax, or banks to charge commissions on. However the challenge faced by the technology is in delivering scale and utility to the wider financial system. It is looking increasingly likely that the original blockchain decentralised architecture may be swept away in favour of a system created exclusively to cater the needs of the global financial system. 

In the meantime it is noteworthy that Bitcoin has not been subject to the same selling pressure as precious metals not least because it is not nearly as liquid and there is no futures contract. That is despite the fact it is often bought for many of the same reasons as gold. 

It continues to hold a progression of higher reaction lows and a sustained move below the $500 area would be required to question medium-term demand dominance.