Innovative Blockchain Project and Opportunities No Company Can Afford To Miss
As we enter 2018, the blockchain phenomenon appears to be gaining traction. With major announcements from companies like Kodak and Microsoft, it’s evident that there are opportunities outside of banking where it has already established itself.
But what are the possibilities for your company? To begin answering that question, I’ve identified five areas of activity where moving to distributed, encrypted record keeping could give you a competitive advantage.
Reducing costs.
Banks and other financial institutions such as insurers have already moved to investigate and adopt blockchain technology. Of course, because the concept is so disruptive to their old business model, it may be a matter of survival for them; the risk being that if they don’t respond, someone else will.
However, the same properties of blockchain that have made it so revolutionary in finance — transparency, reduced need for trust, and a robust, irreversible data structure — might help minimize the burdens associated with making and recording transactions in a variety of other businesses.
If centralized, inefficient, and insecure ledgering and inventory systems can be replaced with a streamlined, distributed blockchain system for record keeping, middle-man functions like administration and compliance-checking of those records will be decreased.
Data stored on a blockchain is also more dependable. If you employ this data in your business analytics (for example, machine data), it’s more likely to be accurate and generate insights that match real-world goals.
Increasing traceability.
In the food industry there is a huge demand for provenance. For legal and business reasons, demonstrating that safety and welfare requirements have been met at every stage of the supply chain is critical.
Every individual ingredient or product now has the potential to have its own “digital passport,” allowing its origin and journey to be traced at any point during the manufacturing process.
Traditionally, these records were handled centrally by a number of different organizations, ranging from producers to pickers, packagers, retailers, and deliverers. This creates several points of failure, such as data loss, and may encourage fraudulent behavior.
The diamond business, where provenance is extremely important, has embraced blockchain with enthusiasm. Everledger, situated in the United Kingdom, has stored data on over 1.6 million of them on a blockchain, including their size, color, and certificate number. Diamonds may still be traced to their “digital twins” on the blockchain using high-resolution photography, even if the unique identifying numbers invisibly engraved into the stones are erased. In the near future, it intends to do the same with vintage wine.
Improving customer experience
Loyalty and reward programs drive repeat business while also providing vital data about purchasing patterns and trends. Data from these programs is traditionally collected centrally, and prizes are paid in arrears after administration and processing.
By switching to a blockchain-based system, reward points can be calculated and awarded at the time of earning. This not only expedites the process, but it also gives customers the option of using the value in their purchases to obtain immediate discounts.
Several startups, including Qiibee and Loyall, have launched blockchain-based loyalty cards in the hopes of making it easier for customers to transfer and trade the value of their freebie vouchers across different retailers. This could lead to reward and loyalty exchanges, in which customers can invest their earned value in what they need right now rather than what they previously spent money on. Customers will be happier and more satisfied as a result of this.
Verifying ownership and proving identity
Keeping track of intellectual and other property rights has become a nightmare in the age of the internet, where a picture can be copied and distributed to a million people with the click of a mouse. The international patenting system is also extremely complicated, with different rules in different countries.
Kodak is reviving their business by positioning themselves as a blockchain technology company. They recently announced a platform that will track and record how photographs and images are used on the internet. It will allow image rights holders to seek payment when their work is used without their permission, but it will also make invoicing more transparent and automated when a photographer/publisher relationship exists.
There’s also the possibility that blockchain will result in more equitable compensation for musicians. Mycelia, the “think and do” tank created by Imogen Heap, is looking into blockchain contracts, IP management, and payment systems. However, blockchain may be used to safeguard more than simply intellectual property.
When dealing with large-value transfers, the real estate market becomes mired down in paperwork and legal compliance procedures. Due to the large number of hands that each application passes through, mortgage applications and approvals can take months. Compliance and due diligence are required at every step of the process. Ubiquity, established in the United States, offers a blockchain solution to this problem, with a public and transparent ledger for recording property titles and deeds.
Identity and credentials may also be established via blockchain. Recruiters are used to dealing with applicants’ embellishments or blatant falsehoods, but it’s an issue that may have costly long-term ramifications.
A blockchain-based CV verification and matching service has been launched in the recruiting space, claiming to substantially reduce the time it takes companies to examine candidates’ qualifications and experience. APPII hopes that its technology, which bills itself as “the world’s first blockchain career verification platform,” would aid in this endeavor.
Enhancing security
Because they are encrypted by design, blockchains are naturally more secure than many conventional file storage methods. Not only that, but because the database is dispersed, no one has complete control over it. The data will not be unintentionally erased, and it will not be available to anybody who is not authorized to see it.
This implies that if you work with sensitive data or data that has to be stored safely for a long period of time, blockchain might be a good fit for you.
The ability of blockchain to automate and eliminate the need for trusted middlemen increases security by removing possible points of failure from the equation, such as human corruption. Guardtime, an Estonian data security firm, has used blockchain technology to secure the health records of one million patients.
Another area where blockchain has made progress is the security of internet communications. Obsidian Messenger proposes a decentralized method to conversation and photo storage on the cloud. Rather of storing all of the data from everyone’s discussions in a single location, it is scattered over all computers running the Obsidian program, and can only be reconstructed into messages and photographs by the person who has the secret key (hopefully the person it is intended for).
And, if one startup’s promise comes true, large-scale data breaches may become a thing of the past. The Edge Security platform makes use of technology that was initially created to safeguard Bitcoin wallets, the digital money that started the whole blockchain mania in the first place. It argues that adopting blockchain technology to keep encrypted data on client devices rather than centrally gathering it at data centers is critical to addressing the disarray created by the annual theft of millions of personal information.
As you can see, there are several potentially compelling use cases that might apply to virtually every industry, and I believe that now is the moment for every company to investigate the implications of blockchain technology.
13 PROMINENT BLOCKCHAIN APPLICATIONS TO KNOW
- Secure sharing of medical data
- NFT marketplaces
- Music royalties tracking
- Cross-border payments
- Real-time IoT operating systems
- Personal identity security
- Anti-money laundering tracking system
- Supply chain and logistics monitoring
- Voting mechanism
- Advertising insights
- Original content creation
- Cryptocurrency exchange
- Real estate processing platform
