Your ultimate guide to Blockchain for the 21st century
It’s 2019 and the excitement around Blockchain is growing faster than ever. Let us see how much of what we have heard about this fascinating technology has come to fruition, and why blockchains are here to stay for the long term.
In 2018, we were able to witness numerous disruptive projects in their pilot stage, and finally, in 2019, these projects are moving from their concept stage to the customer. Publicly vocal skeptics are now catching the Blockchain wagon before it’s too late to capitalise. For example, Goldman Sachs, a formerly vocal disbeliever, is now launching its own crypto-investing product for their customers.
Even though applications in fin-tech remain the most popular, a lot of other industries like media, telecommunications, life sciences, health care, and government are expanding and diversifying their Blockchain initiatives. A survey conducted by Deloitte in 2019 shows that Fifty-three percent of respondents say that blockchain technology has become a critical priority for their organisations in 2019 — a 10-point increase over last year.
We at BirthVenue have analysed, covered and worked upon multiple use-cases and practical implementations across verticals. Apart from the fin-tech solutions around insurance contracts and digital financial identities, we find that the ones that we discuss below are the ones expected to have exponential growth. One of these use-cases could redefine how blockchains can be used.
Our blog ‘Blockchain for everyone’ is an attempt to remove any misconceptions around the technology and shed light on the significant use-cases/applications. One of the biggest concerns for adoption has been scalability and interoperability. However, as expected, blockchains have been continually evolving and improving their fundamental statistics around both the above parameters.
Real Estate
One interesting criticism laid by the public against Blockchain is that it is a solution looking for problems to fit in. However, our 2 part series on the real estate industry,” Real Estate on Blockchain” and “Blockchain and The Ownership Game” shows how Blockchain addresses the challenges in this industry specifically.
Here we describe key applications like putting the land records on a blockchain and tokenomics to establish fractional ownership of real estate projects. As this industry has been pretty much controlled by middlemen, it makes perfect sense to eliminate these extra moving parts and streamline the whole process. Some examples given are the Dubai land department for land registry and Relex development for token-based investments. Dubai is extremely excited about the potential of Blockchain and has additionally set up further initiatives, for example, Dubai’s cryptocurrency project. As a result of India’s strict action or inaction on crypto projects, Relex has currently made little progress in India, however it is becoming widely accepted globally with new projects being established in Belarus, Malta, Myanmar, and Vietnam. Token-based applications for real estate are becoming very popular globally; for example, the US and Malta are leading anumber of projects and creating new disruptive models in this vertical.
Privacy
Cloud-based services have made our lives very comfortable, but they have also made the biggest tech companies privy to our lives, whether we are aware or not. It’s severe enough that the man who gave us the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee himself, sees the need to reinvent the internet.
Our blog “Feeling Invaded? Time for a Revolution” explains how the solution to retain our privacy is to build a decentralised internet using Blockchain. To summarise the solution, by using a blockchain, data is kept in a network of computers all around the globe, each connected through cryptographic validation. In other words, this decentralised and distributed framework of sharing information is highly secure and allows for greater privacy. A great example used of business model built around protecting privacy is The Brave browser, that has hit an all-time high of users as of 2019.
Security Testing
As you can see, a key fact is that this technology also helps provide a system to those companies who wish to gain a competitive advantage in the domain of security and transparency. However, while once hailed as un-hackable; Blockchains are also getting hacked from time to time, albeit rarely. Our blog “Is Security Testing for Blockchains The Next logical step?” covers how Blockchains can be tested via new penetration frameworks to address all components, including smart contract audits, seamless integrations, and platform dependence.
At the time of us publishing the above blog, almost no companies were providing this solution; however, presently blockchain development & security companies have started including blockchain testing as part of their services. Key examples are Whiteblock, Probeseven, and IBM Xforce Red.
Automotive
Blockchain has numerous applications in improving the efficiencies around vehicle management, verification processes across supply chains, and even in automobile finance by helping streamline the transaction processes. In the age of autonomous cars where millions of devices are communicating with each other, there is a need for these interactions to be recorded in an immutable database with restriction to access.
In the blog “Ever thought about blockchain while driving your car?” we analyse a few areas where Blockchain is transforming traditional operations such as parts verification, supply chain, automated insurance contracts, loyalty programs, as well as ride sharing services.
This year we will see several pilot projects by industry giants moving on to the delivery stage. Example, Porsche tested the financial capabilities of Blockchain with BBVA, a Spanish bank that is using Blockchain to simplify some of its operations. GM Financial is a financial arm of General Motors that offers leasing, financing, and lending products, and has partnered up with the blockchain startup Spring Labs.
Education
Since the vertical of education is pretty broad, we have covered a few applications in two separate blogs like “Looking for the next revolution in employment? It’s already here” and “Looking for a jumpstart? Blockchain is for you!”.
Blockchain can be leveraged to create a framework to allow anybody in academia or industry to validate any information mentioned on a profile with full credibility at the lowest cost possible. It could be a blockchain-based academic registry that could be accessed by students, administrators, college admissions offices, employers, and other relevant parties, each with their access levels and desired functionality. Using Blockchain to create a digital identity can eliminate the need for intermediaries, unlocking valuable funds earlier displaced through traditional third-party verification processes.
After understanding the poor quality of blockchain learning programs in the market presently, BirthVenue has recently ventured into the blockchain training space as well. Being one of the top enterprise blockchain solution providers in the country, and having worked across multiple verticals, we have launched an extremely focused blockchain curriculum delivered by industry experts along with multiple education partners.
The most recent success story is PES University, Banglore.
Also, by onboarding an artificial intelligence and Machine learning backed career service provider, Hiration, we are able to provide their full service too as an add-on for the students.
Trade Finance
There are many gaps in trade financing operations for which Blockchain is inherently suitable for streamlining, some which range from manual contract creation where the importing bank has to manually verify agreements provided by the importer, to delayed payments due to the number of intermediaries present to verify that funds have been delivered, to multiple versions of financial records as they are sent from one entity to another.
Our blog “The silent revolution of Blockchain that is reshaping Trade Finance” explores some of the benefits blockchains brings to the industry. This includes real-time review and decentralised contract execution, eliminating intermediaries, lowering counter-party risk, and executing settlements using smart contracts.
Blockchain in trade finance activities is highly sought after for Trade-based money laundering, or TBML, which is a new frontier in financial crime. It is likely the most complicated and intricate method of money laundering.
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Envisioning a world without intermediaries.
Sabarish Nair
Blockchain Analyst
