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When most people hear the term “blockchain,” they automatically relate it to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. While it is true that blockchain technology serves as the backbone for these digital currencies, its potential scope goes far beyond that of transaction-based finances. In other words, blockchain is poised to complement and provide secure, visible, accountable, and decentralized means of data, contract, and identity management for countless industries.
Blockchain seeks to transform supply chains, healthcare, and voting systems, thereby being a diametrical shift in the way businesses operate vis-a-vis the momentous relationship technology has had for humans. More of such exhilarating real-life applications of blockchain and their impact across multiple sectors will form the subject of our discussion here.
Supply Chain Management: Bringing Transparency and Efficiency
Ever wondered about the journey of food, clothing, and electronics from producer to consumer? Since the entire journey consists of such a large number of parties, it becomes practically impossible to assure the transparency and authenticity of products. This is where blockchain comes in.
Blockchain allows companies to create a digital ledger that enables the supply chain process to record every action taken during its operations. This ledger would be available to all stakeholders, thus preventing manipulation by any single party, which in turn would help them combat fraud, and delays, and build further trust with their customers.
Real World Example: IBM Food Trust, which helps in tracking food supply chains through the blockchain, is being utilized by companies like Walmart to find the sources of food products, create less risk of contamination, and increase safety.
Healthcare: Secure and Efficient Patient Records
A much more expansive domain where blockchain technology has yet to become fully utilized is healthcare. Often patient records are disintegrated across different hospitals and systems, thereby leading to inefficiencies and security concerns. Blockchain solves the problem by storing the records in a secured fashion in a decentralized system where only authorized personnel members can have access.
Further, blockchain gives patients the right to control their medical data, hence facilitating the sharing of records among healthcare professionals without compromising privacy.
Real-World Example: MedRec is a blockchain-based system designed to give patients ownership of their medical data. It facilitates seamless and secure sharing between doctors and healthcare facilities, throwing away all paperwork and making a whole lot of sense.
Finance and Banking: Faster and Safer Transactions
With the traditional slow and exorbitant cross-border payments and banking transactions due to multiple intermediaries created between the parties, blockchain cuts out the intermediaries, thereby making fast, cheap, and secure payments.
Smart contracts are self-executing contracts with pre-determined terms and conditions. These can be scheduled to automatically carry through financial agreements in the case of fulfillment. This aids contract execution and minimizes the chances of fraud and error in banking.
Real-World Example: Ripple (XRP) is building blockchain-based technology to facilitate instant and cost-effective cross-border transfers, allowing money to be transferred around the globe with ease for both businesses and individuals.
Real Estate: Reducing Fraud and Simplifying Transactions
Buying and selling property often involve long, tedious processes with extensive paperwork and intermediaries. The use of blockchain solves this by making property transactions transparent and secure through smart contracts. Such contracts execute themselves when specific conditions within their definitions are met, thus allowing for the lessening of the broker’s role and the minimization of opportunities for fraud.
In addition, blockchain helps establish a tamper-proof land register for proof of rightful ownership of properties.
Real-world example: Propy, a blockchain-based real estate platform, eliminates all paper-based work from property transactions and automates the buying process, thus increasing efficiency in property transactions.
Digital Identity: Secure and User-Controlled Authentication
The matter of identity theft and data breaches has become paramount in the digital age. Blockchain technology is the way forward for individuals needing to secure their digital identities by owning and controlling their digital identities. Rather than usernames and passwords, a user will have a single digital identity held on a blockchain network.
This identity verification is being adopted by governments and businesses using the blockchain to combat identity fraud and create seamless authentication processes.
Real-World Example: Microsoft’s ION is a decentralized identity system built on blockchain that provides secure and tamper-proof digital identities.
Voting Systems: Enhancing Transparency and Trust
Elections are often tarnished with allegations of fraud, hacking, and manipulation. A voting system based on blockchain technologies gives citizens a way to vote that is transparent, tamper-proof, and secure. When a vote lands on the blockchain, the vote is immutable, meaning that the results of an election cannot be arbitrarily changed.
This perhaps lends credibility to the electoral process and further enhances voter participation and confidence regarding the democratic process.
Real-World Example: Voatz is a mobile voting platform that uses blockchain technology to secure election integrity by enabling people to vote remotely while ensuring transparency.
Intellectual Property and Copyright Protection: Empowering Creators
With the advent of digital content, piracy and unauthorized use of intellectual property have become pressing concerns for artists, musicians, and content creators alike. A blockchain essentially can resolve this problem by providing an immutable ledger in which ownership rights are registered.
This allows them to protect their work, receive fair remuneration, and track the use of their content.
Real-World Example: KodakOne is a blockchain-based image rights management platform that helps photographers license and protect their digital images, ensuring they get paid for their work.
Education and Certification: Verifying Credentials
Many candidates falsify their socio-experience credentials, making it tough to check qualifications for employers. Information on academic records, professional qualifications, and work experiences might safely and securely be stored in blockchains.
Blockchain-enabled certificates allow the employer to cross-check a candidate’s educational credentials instantaneously without reliance on third-party verifications.
Real-World Example: Learning Machine, alongside MIT, developed a blockchain-based diploma issuance and verification system that blocks credential fraud.
Conclusion: The Future of Blockchain Beyond Cryptocurrency
Blockchain technology has gone beyond being just for cryptocurrencies; it has gained significant traction in disrupting industries across the globe. Larry explains that they are making it easier to bring supply chains into transparency, secure medical records, simplify real estate transactions, and safeguard intellectual property.
This ever-growing acknowledgment keeps giving birth to more innovations in a few years down the line. Be it emancipation of vote casting, improving cybersecurity, or putting payments into the hands of creators; blockchain will be the very technology doing it.
Will blockchain become mainstream? The only question that remains is, how soon? Are you prepared to tap into the reality?
What do you think about blockchain, outside of cryptocurrency? Get in touch with your suggestions in the comments below! 🚀
