Three future directions to complete the Global Prominence of Blockchain
In the recent years, the term ‘blockchain’ has become a buzzword throughout a wide scope of industries and seems to promise a bright, innovative and world-changing future. However, to secure its prominence in the ever-evolving modern world, blockchain technology still has to overcome several obstacles. Some of the major blockers that are keeping blockchain from mass adoption include the lack of general blockchain knowledge in the market, problems regarding the alterability of data, and insufficient use case that is universal and consumer friendly. In the following paragraphs, I will go into more details on how future development and innovation will affect the adoption of blockchain, and why I believe these obstacles will eventually be solved in the foreseeable future.
Editable Blockchain: An Oxymoron or a Breakthrough?
One of the problems holding back wider applications of blockchain is its alterability. It is impossible to edit data once it is on a chain. This is actually a core feature of the technology, as it creates a data platform with immutability. Such feature provides significant benefits for applications such as transactions, auditing, and data storage as it proves that the data has not been secretly altered by anyone in the process. However, as most data scientists would acknowledge, a statistical model is only as good as the data you input to the system. Immutable blockchain can face the similar problem. With gigantic datasets and complicated transactions being dealt with every second, it is inevitable that we will encounter some instances of error and omissions in the data input process. In traditional blockchain, ‘amending’ these errors may create enormous amount of extra work and costs, as it is impossible to directly change them.
In an effort to tackle this problem, there has been some recent innovations on editable blockchain technology. This creation drew both praise and criticism. Skeptics criticised this innovation by arguing that it undermined the core feature of blockchain technology, immutability. However, supporters believe that it simply creates a platform that is more practical for real-world transactions. In fact, there is still a fundamental difference between editable blockchain and traditional databases. In an editable blockchain, all the modifications would still be clearly traced. Everyone would know when and how the data was modified. Take Activeledger as an example, although it is not an ‘editable blockchain’, data can be appended, not changed. And of course, timestamps of these updates will be well-recorded throughout. This prevents the risk of fraudulent modifications and guarantees data accuracy, keeping intact the original principles of blockchain technology. Therefore, I believe it is only a matter of time until the market realises its benefits and clear the doubts on potential problems of data modification or appends. With a conveniently ‘editable’ blockchain platform, it is much more likely that the technology would be widely adopted in the real world.
Blockchain Here, There and Everywhere: The Integration of IoT and Blockchain
Upon mentioning the word blockchain, the first thing that pops into people’s mind is likely to be cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin. However, cryptocurrency is a virtual and intangible asset. To understand the technology better, it is necessary to bring blockchain to a closer level to our daily lives. An integration with IoT (Internet of Things) provides this opportunity. IoT is basically an idea of connecting everyday devices via the internet and enabling them to send and receive information. The concept of IoT is becoming more and more popular, with products like Amazon’s Alexa already prominent in the market. However, there are still some issues yet to be resolved for IoT, such as cybersecurity. With personal devices being connected, any hacking activities can create a huge amount of disruption and personal data breach. This is where blockchain can play its role. Michael Casey, a senior advisor for MIT Digital Currency Initiative (DCI), called blockchain ‘the truth machine,’ referring to its ability to prevent data tampering.
Due to its ability to securely track data trails, blockchain can add value on the use of IoT via its decentralisation and autonomy that facilitate the communication between different devices. This combination can not only help reduce the transaction and verification costs and accelerate the transaction process, but also build trust between parties and reduce cybersecurity risks. These features would enable IoT to be more widely accepted in the market. By integrating with IoT, blockchain would no longer be a vague concept that only appears in some parts of the business world. It will become an essential feature in our daily lives, and reshape the world like the internet once did before. For example, a pig farmer can send his pigs off to a slaughterhouse without worrying about the pig’s weight being altered manually because the scale is an IoT device that connects directly to the blockchain. The details behind blockchain technology may be only understood by industry experts, but the combination with IoT is likely to be the fuel needed to spread blockchain across big to small businesses.
The Next Heir of the ‘Smart’ Generation: Smart Contracts and the Role of Blockchain
Throughout the recent decade or so, ‘smart’ devices and concepts have drastically changed the way human beings go by their daily lives. Smart phones, smart watches, and various other smart devices shaped the world as it currently is. Smart contracts may be the next big thing on that list. The nature of smart contracts may be fairly different from the previous smart devices, but the fundamental idea is the same. It reduces the amount of manual work and brings convenience to the parties involved.
Smart contracts can be basically viewed as a real-life contract written into code and put on a blockchain. You can also see them as the rules governing ‘how the game plays’ on a blockchain. For example, in a business situation, fulfilment of condition A and condition B will lead to a result C. That result C, under some circumstances, can be automatically executed. Smart contracts also timestamps activities happening on the blockchain, activities include transaction time, goods involved, value of contract, parties involved and more. However, it is also a double-edged sword. Although the smart contracts are ‘smart’, they are designed by humans, which means there are chances for error. Moreover, these ‘humans’, the precious blockchain developers, must be experienced and skilled enough to generate codes that contain complete business logic after taking all possible situations into account. Yet, there must be some give-and-take. The more intense the use of techies, the higher the cost the company has to bear. These drawbacks are the main reason holding the masses back from adopting smart contracts.
With regard to these problems, Activeledger’s CTO, Adam Walker came up with an idea, to increase the interaction in the market. Now, imagine a marketplace where standardised smart contract samples are available for people to buy and download, and they just need to do the customising part. Moreover, people are able to upload their smart contracts they want to share. The concept is basically using well-developed code template but in a more efficient way. By purchasing those smart contract templates on the marketplace, at least the generic business logic is pre-filled for different industries and situations. This will not only save time but also cost less than creating brand new smart contracts each time for whoever needs them.
Conclusion: Are Blockchains Taking Over The World?
During the past few years, blockchain applications have sprung up in all kinds of industries. When people are still imagining how blockchain technology is going to solve the problem and bring convenience in life, in fact, it has already infiltrated our daily lives, ranging from elections (e-voting), logistics, management, banking systems, insurance, real estate to the Internet of Things (IoT). For instance, thanks to its encryption and anonymity, the possibility of manipulating votes has been reduced. In addition, blockchain technology has also made a major breakthrough in the supply chain. Through the smart contract, each participant in the chain can see the long and complex logistics tracking, making the transaction faster and more efficient. Furthermore, ‘World Economic Forum Survey projects blockchain ‘Tipping Point’ by 2023 and anticipates that 10% of global GDP will be stored on the blockchain by 2025.’ All evidence suggests that blockchain is gaining its importance. Despite roadblocks of the massive adoption of blockchain, problems can be solved by exploiting the revised technologies mentioned above. And thus, a future with widespread blockchain applications and high popularity is foreseeable.
