Exploring the Applications of Blockchain Beyond Cryptocurrency
Blockchain may be best-known as the technology behind Bitcoin, but its application extends much further. Blockchain promises to reduce both costs and risks for financial services firms by automating clearing and settlement processes.
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Blockchain provides increased transparency and virtual incorruptibility; however, their implementation in organizations presents numerous obstacles.
1. Financial Services
Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology (DLT) used to power cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. But its potential extends far beyond digital currency: automating transactions while improving transparency and accountability are among its many uses.
Brands like TransferWise and Santander are helping reduce the costs of international money transfers using Blockchain-based platforms such as Ripple’s xCurrent to automate and streamline this process, with fewer intermediaries involved in this way of working.
Blockchain can significantly enhance the efficiency of financial markets by enabling automated clearing, eliminating central counterparties and facilitating direct ownership of securities. Financial firms must overcome regulatory hurdles and demonstrate innovation legitimacy before adopting this technology.
2. Health Care
Blockchain’s incorruptible, decentralized and transparent log of all data makes it ideal for healthcare security applications. Blockchain ensures traceability of pharmaceutical supplies, eliminates fake medicines and speeds up claims processing times.
Blockchain technology can also provide an ideal way of storing medical records and verifiable vaccination passes, with its encryption features safeguarding documents against being altered and only being accessible with a key. This makes blockchain an excellent solution for medical records storage.
Blockchain can provide crucial assistance to the 1.3 billion people without access to banking services, leaving them more susceptible to theft and violence. Blockchain allows these individuals to manage their wealth more securely by providing them with digital identification.
3. Agriculture
Agriculture industries face numerous obstacles, including inefficient supply chain management, lackluster food safety measures and rising production costs. Blockchain can help the agriculture sector overcome these issues while expanding transparency, traceability and trust within its sector.
One such application of blockchain could be in land registration, where delays and high fees currently accompany recording property transactions. By using blockchain to streamline this process and increase efficiency (Chavez-Dreyfuss 2016).
Blockchain can also assist farmers with payment processing. Farmers often experience delays in receiving payments for their produce, yet Blockchain allows peer-to-peer transfers that are secure, near instantaneous and more cost effective – this makes the technology particularly advantageous in developing nations without an established banking infrastructure.
4. Energy
Many companies are employing blockchain to reduce costs and improve services. Circle has used its blockchain platform to reduce remittance costs while Ripple utilizes it to speed up cross-border payments.
Other businesses have implemented blockchain to track production processes from raw materials through to shipment. Businesses like Walmart use it to verify that products purchased from suppliers have arrived at their stores.
Blockchain can also help media companies prevent fraud, reduce costs and protect intellectual property rights. Media companies can utilize Blockchain technology to store digital versions of music records. Furthermore, they can track who views or downloads their content.
5. Transportation
Blockchain is not exclusively related to cryptocurrency; instead, many industries are harnessing its technology for solving business issues such as improving government, providing transparency and accountability, or decreasing financial burdens.
Blockchain could also revolutionize cross-border trade financing, offering an efficient means of tracking and managing multiple aspects of an trade financing deal as well as eliminating delays caused by slow processes.
Blockchain could also play an integral part in making the Internet of Things safer and smarter, helping prevent data breaches by authenticating devices with blockchain technology and creating bi-directional communication among devices to make them more useful.
6. Education
Blockchain allows data to be stored across multiple locations, creating redundancy and maintaining integrity of that information, making it harder for hackers to gain access and steal sensitive data.
Voting: Blockchain technology could enhance voting transparency and eliminate voter tampering by giving voters the ability to keep track of their votes without disclosing their identities.
However, blockchain-based voting systems may pose ethical challenges that need to be managed, including how to balance identification transparency with privacy (Malinova & Park 2017). Ensuring users’ rights are respected may also present difficulties that require further research and development as well as setting appropriate standards and creating oversight mechanisms.
