Blockchain – Transforming Industries

What Is The Blockchain?

The blockchain is a distributed ledger technology that underlies cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and platforms like Ethereum. This technology has the ability to make the organizations that use it transparent, democratic, decentralized, efficient, and secure.

Banking and Payments

Some say that the blockchain will do to banking what the internet did to media. Many banks like Barclays are also working on adopting blockchain technology to make their business operations faster, more efficient, and secure. Banks are also increasingly investing in blockchain startups and projects.

Supply Chain Management

With blockchain technology, transactions can be documented in a permanent decentralized record and monitored securely and transparently.

Forecasting

The blockchain is set to change the entire approach to research, consulting, analysis and forecasting.

Networking and the Internet of Things

Operating like a public ledger for a large number of devices, it would eliminate the need for a central location to handle communications between them.

Private Transport and Ride Sharing

The blockchain can be used to create decentralized versions of peer-to-peer ridesharing apps, allowing both car owners and users to arrange terms and conditions in a secure way without third-party providers.

Cloud Storage

Using blockchain technology allows cloud storage to be more secure and robust against attacks.

Voting

Probably one of the most important areas of society that the blockchain will disrupt is voting. Blockchain technology can be used for voter registration and identity verification, and electronic vote counting to ensure that only legitimate votes are counted, and no votes are changed or removed.

Healthcare

Blockchain technology can allow hospitals to safely store data like medical records and share it with authorized professionals or patients.

Online Music

Several startups are coming up with ways for musicians to get paid directly from their fans, without giving up large percentages of sales to platforms or record companies.

Retail

In these cases, trust comes from smart contract systems, the security of exchanges, and built-in reputation management systems. One startup disrupting the retail space is OpenBazaar.

Real Estate

Using blockchain technology can speed up transactions by reducing the need for paper-based record keeping. Ubitquity is a blockchain-secured platform for real estate record-keeping that is an alternative for legacy paper-based systems.

Crowdfunding

In blockchain-based crowdfunding, trust is instead created through smart contracts and online reputation systems, which removes the need for a middle-man. Many blockchain startups have now raised millions of dollars through such token sales. Although it’s still early days and the regulatory future of blockchain-based crowdfunding is uncertain, it’s an area that holds a lot of promise.

Some of the useful links to explore –

Bitcoin – https://bitcoin.org/

Abra – https://www.goabra.com/

Provenance – https://www.provenance.org/

Fluent (Rebranded to Hijro) – https://hijro.com/

SKUChain – https://skuchain.com/

Blockverify – http://www.blockverify.io/

Augur – https://augur.net/

Networking and IoT

Adept – http://www.coindesk.com/ibm-reveals-p…

Aeternity – https://www.aeternity.com/

Arcade City – https://arcade.city/