Blockchain Will Change the Way We Use and Store Data

Blockchain will become an integral part of how we manage our data; blockchain’s attributes make this undeniable. But how much could it really transform data, and how widespread could its adoption be?

Well, by some estimates, distributed ledger technology in data could be worth up to 20% of the big data market as early as 2030.

Big data is the huge amount of data, structured and unstructured, that institutions and industries could potentially compile and analyze to gain insights and improve their organization. As nice as it is that all this data exists, in its current form it’s difficult to access and hard to verify, and therefore not very useful. Most of it goes unused and unanalyzed. But with blockchain technology, this could change.

The nature of distributed ledger technology means that data storage can be a much more secure, transparent process. Databases on a blockchain would be an unchangeable and a more trustworthy source of information because data can be sourced back to its origins. A large concern with most data is that its unverifiable and unusable, but professionals of all kinds could benefit from data coming from a distributed ledger.

A medical database on a blockchain would create a dependable, easily accessible resource for healthcare professionals across a country or around the world to access patient records, which could help reduce medical mistakes resulting from uninformed decisions. With a private blockchain, patient’s data would also be better protected, because the database can demand more than one doctor’s key, or “signature” to access records.

Electronic health data stored in a blockchain in conjunction with a smart contract could also improve the health insurance industry and facilitate a more efficient and positive relationship with clients.

Educational systems also have a lot of data to keep track of for students that are constantly moving from school to school, and they could also hugely benefit from the blockchain’s ability to store verifiable data for others to access. For more on how education could benefit from distributed ledger technology, see our article 4 Ways Blockchain Could Change the Education System.

Entire governments are also beginning to understand the benefits that blockchain could hold for them. National governments have to keep track of its citizens’ records, which are often stored under so many different government agencies that information can sometimes be lost or hard to compile. Consolidating information into larger databases for everything — taxes, asset information, identifying characteristics, and more, may seem dangerous, but with the blockchain’s increased security measures, this wouldn’t be an unreasonable step to take.

Estonia, for example, is developing itself to be the world’s most advanced digital society with the help of the blockchain, and will be using a Keyless Signature Infrastructure (KSI) to keep all public-sector data safe. KSI will let government officials monitor changes in databases and make data more transparent.

Not only could it cut down on external falsified records, but it would also be much harder for unauthorized government officials to manipulate information and data internally, which would help reduce corruption and increase efficiency.

The financial sector is especially eager to capitalize on blockchain’s potential to store and verify financial data in order cut out the need for the middleman to verify transactional information. For financial professionals, the attraction of the blockchain’s data storing abilities lies in its ability to cut costs and increase efficiency, which incentivizes customers to use their product over others and brings in more money.

Putting supply chain data on distributed ledger technology can transform all kinds of industries, from trucking to agriculture to the underground slave trade and more. Every industry deals with data in some form, so every industry stands to benefit from the blockchain.

Blockchain technology can also improve big data analytics because it can speed up the process of identifying patterns and identifying risky or suspicious data. This development would help the retail industry, among others, because the distributed ledger could deliver more accurate consumer behavior patterns and reject risky transactions. Companies could then make better informed decisions and reduce the potential for losses.

Obtaining quality information from improved data analytics and blockchain databases means that the data inputted in the first place needs to be correct. Data processes as they are currently require data to go through many sources and transformations, with many possible places for errors to be introduced. As a result, only about a third of executives trust their analytics programs.

Blockchain can help reduce the number potential points where data transfers incorrectly by digitizing the entire process, but it cannot eliminate the possibility of incorrect data entering a database in the first place. Bad data recorded on a blockchain is still bad data. People naturally make mistakes; someone might miss a number entering data, or others might lie about data outright. There’s only so much that technology can do to help us out.

Currently, data-related blockchain startups typically target individual industries in order to better tailor the program to its specific needs with the limited resources they have. One startup, Uptake, defies this. Uptake has developed a product that aims to take data and improve clarity, efficiency, and security across many different industries, which their team can then tailor to specific businesses’ needs.

There’s a lot of potential to improve the way we gather and use data. For many, like social workers, half of their time is spent finding, compiling, and verifying data. With blockchain databases, their time could be better allocated to helping more people. We hardly use the data we have, either; only about 1% of industrial data is utilized today. That unused data could tell us how we can improve our governments, businesses, and wellbeing. Now that we have the tools to help us understand it, it would be silly not to use them.