How seriously are American corporations committed to blockchain technologies? Are blockchain technologies materially significant yet? One place to find the answers to these questions is Form 10-K, a report the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires corporations to file annually. Some of the information a company is required to disclose in the 10-K includes details on the nature of its business, risk factors, financial data, organizational structure, subsidiaries, and management’s discussion and analysis about the financial and operational results. Because it is regulated by the SEC, audited by an independent auditor and scrutinized by market participants — such as analysts and institutional investors — the 10-K is considered a credible report and source of information on the operations and financial performance of a firm. Given its inherent credibility compared to, say, a marketing campaign, social media post or presentation at a technology conference, as well as the focus of these reports on current shareholders and future investors, we examine companies’ propensity to discuss blockchains in their 10-Ks in order to measure the degree of their investment in this technology.
We extracted 10-K reports from the years 2014 to 2018 that mentioned the terms “blockchain” or “distributed ledger” and counted the number of times a corporation used them. We found very modest results. Of the 36,836 10-K reports in the database spanning five years, only 242 reports — representing a little more than half of a percent — mentioned blockchains or distributed ledgers. Thus, most of corporate America is silent on blockchains in the 10-K reports, suggesting that involvement with blockchain is not yet materially significant enough to alert investors.