Here are some of the most popular applications of blockchain being explored today.
Bank Use
Perhaps no industry stands to benefit from integrating blockchain into its business operations more than banking. Financial institutions only operate during business hours, five days a week. That means if you try to deposit a check on Friday at 6 p.m., you likely will have to wait until Monday morning to see that money hit your account. Even if you do make your deposit during business hours, the transaction can still take one to three days to verify due to the sheer volume of transactions that banks need to settle. Blockchain, on the other hand, never sleeps.
By integrating blockchain into banks, consumers can see their transactions processed in as little as 10 minutes, basically the time it takes to add a block to the blockchain, regardless of the time or day of the week. With blockchain, banks also have the opportunity to exchange funds between institutions more quickly and securely. In the stock trading business, for example, the settlement and clearing process can take up to three days (or longer, if banks are trading internationally), meaning that the money and shares are frozen for that time.
Given the size of the sums involved, even the few days that the money is in transit can carry significant costs and risks for banks. Santander, a European bank, put the potential savings at $20 billion a year. Capgemini, a French consultancy, estimates that consumers could save up to $16 billion in banking and insurance fees each year through blockchain-based applications.
Use in Cryptocurrency
Blockchain forms the bedrock for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. As we explored earlier, currencies like the U.S. dollar are regulated and verified by a central authority, usually a bank or government. Under the central authority system, a user’s data and currency are technically at the whim of their bank or government. If a user’s bank collapses or they live in a country with an unstable government, the value of their currency may be at risk. These are the worries out of which Bitcoin was borne.
By spreading its operations across a network of computers, blockchain allows Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to operate without the need for a central authority. This not only reduces risk but also eliminates many of the processing and transaction fees. It also gives those in countries with unstable currencies a more stable currency with more applications and a wider network of individuals and institutions they can do business with, both domestically and internationally (at least, this is the goal.)
Healthcare Uses
Health care providers can leverage blockchain to securely store their patients’ medical records. When a medical record is generated and signed, it can be written into the blockchain, which provides patients with the proof and confidence that the record cannot be changed. These personal health records could be encoded and stored on the blockchain with a private key, so that they are only accessible by certain individuals, thereby ensuring privacy
Property Records Use
If you have ever spent time in your local Recorder’s Office, you will know that the process of recording property rights is both burdensome and inefficient. Today, a physical deed must be delivered to a government employee at the local recording office, where is it manually entered into the county’s central database and public index. In the case of a property dispute, claims to the property must be reconciled with the public index.
This process is not just costly and time-consuming—it is also riddled with human error, where each inaccuracy makes tracking property ownership less efficient. Blockchain has the potential to eliminate the need for scanning documents and tracking down physical files in a local recording office. If property ownership is stored and verified on the blockchain, owners can trust that their deed is accurate and permanent.
Use in Smart Contracts
A smart contract is a computer code that can be built into the blockchain to facilitate, verify, or negotiate a contract agreement. Smart contracts operate under a set of conditions that users agree to. When those conditions are met, the terms of the agreement are automatically carried out.
Say, for example, I’m renting you my apartment using a smart contract. I agree to give you the door code to the apartment as soon as you pay me your security deposit. Both of us would send our portion of the deal to the smart contract, which would hold onto and automatically exchange my door code for your security deposit on the date of the rental. If I don’t supply the door code by the rental date, the smart contract refunds your security deposit. This eliminates the fees that typically accompany using a notary or third-party mediator.
Supply Chain Use
Suppliers can use blockchain to record the origins of materials that they have purchased. This would allow companies to verify the authenticity of their products, along with health and ethics labels like “Organic,” “Local,” and “Fair Trade.”
As reported by Forbes the food industry is moving into the use of blockchain to increasingly track the path and safety of food throughout the farm-to-user journey.
Uses in Voting
Voting with blockchain carries the potential to eliminate election fraud and boost voter turnout, as was tested in the Nov. 2018 midterm elections in West Virginia. Each vote would be stored as a block on the blockchain, making them nearly impossible to tamper with. The blockchain protocol would also maintain transparency in the electoral process, reducing the personnel needed to conduct an election and provide officials with instant results.
blog by Tushar
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