10 ideas for Blockchain solutions

By Maciej Marut, Bartosz Dluzen, Krzysztof Bury

We are all living in strange times, where technology is created / invented to build trust between two parties and to remove intermediaries from the process. On the other hand once such technology is in place, instead of taking all its benefits we as a society (at least majority of us) are more interested in the derivatives of it — cryptocurrencies — and maximizing the profits rather than on inventing and investing more in solutions were it can potentially be used.

Technology that is described in above paragraph is blockchain, and this article will present 10 ideas for potential blockchain use cases and their pros and cons.

However, before we will jump into solutions, let’s just briefly define what blockchain is. Blockchain is a technology that enables moving digital assets between individuals, based on open (for public blockchain) ledger which is distributed between the nodes in the network and synchronized across all the parties.

Below list of solutions is just a potential set of use cases where blockchain may be used. It doesn’t mean that it should and is critical to be used there — each use case comes packed with a problem, solution and possible obstacles description. This technology is not only sunshine and rainbow and a panacea for all the known problems it also has its flaws.

1. Internet of Things (IoT) integration hub platform

Problem: Authentication of a sensor and its purpose inside of an Internet of Thing network. Example: “Beacon” substitution in a shopping mall to gather information about clients or stealing loyalty benefits (points / discounts).

Solution description: With an ongoing number of smart devices connected to the Internet (75,4 billion expected in 2025[5]), problem of security and authentication will be a tough challenge to solve. Blockchain technology may come in handy. Each new device could potentially be added to a network (private or public one), and under certain cycle they should confirm their identities to the network, besides it would be possible to enable secure messaging bus between all devices in a network.

Possible obstacles:

• Cost and time that will take for the network to accept a new sensor and a message — here comes a possibility that a potential attacker may substitute a device with another, by increasing value of transaction for Proof of Work in network (for its own transaction);
• Publicness of network — everyone in public network can track how many devices will be assigned to an owner;
• Technical approach as to how network will behave when device would be removed / destroyed / replaced by another one.

2. Money transfers — both external and internals

Problem: Intermediaries, additional fees, and charges when transferring money from person A to B, internal accounting.

Solution description: This is by far the most broadly used (and discussed) solution for blockchain technology. Removing intermediaries, and in the meantime bringing trust to such trivial action as money transfer is. Saving all the transactions in an immutable, trusted and secure layer of a distributed network. Where there would be no (or at least very low compared to standard options) fees for transferring money from person A to B.

Possible obstacles:

• Network performance and scalability of decentralized solution compared to current market players: VISA (~ 1700 transactions per second (tps)), PayPal (~ 115 tps in late 2014), Bitcoin (~ 3–4 tps), Ethereum (~ 20 tps);
• Transaction price of decentralized solutions continuously growing [6];
• Double spending problem (exists for both centralized and decentralized solution — but still worth to mention) [7];

3. Niche authors and creators streaming service

Problem: Authors / Creators are not being paid for theirs content due to piracy, or they are being paid far less than they could be due to intermediaries and fees connected.

Solution description: Bring creators and authors to a blockchain network, were transactions for using, streaming, downloading or modifying (remixes) is set between authors / creators themselves and other people, without need for 3rd parties. Author is uploading content to a network and setting price for its usage, all money for purchases is going straight to author.

Possible obstacles:

• User base that streaming services are bringing compared to a lone wolf publications on a blockchain networks;
• It would still require external services monitoring to check if content is not being used without an agreement from an Author / Creator.

4. News feed with only trusted and true articles

Problem: Fake news, fake news everywhere. How not to fall into a trap of a fake news on your friend “wall”.

Solution description: By bringing authors and readers to a common solution, based on blockchain network. Authors of articles / posts can potentially be judged by readers (like / share). Authors with more points / better reputation will gain in a “ladder” with proved status, those with lower / negative reputation will not be visible.

Possible obstacles: Although it is already (and will be) a big problem to distinguish fake from real news it would need to be consider if blockchain will be capable of dealing with vast amount of data (news) created each second, maybe other emerging solutions such as machine learning can bring more benefits.

5. Making data yours again — sharing health data with 3rd parties

Problem: Sharing private data with 3rd parties, without a real benefit.

Solution description: By buying and using wearables, or health applications or any other solutions that are harvesting the data we as a society (as users) are agreeing to give companies our privacy. How about introducing blockchain also to this field and instead of sharing private data with every company of which services we are using, we would get a token from each company that would like to use data that is being generated by us. Such tokens could be later on transferred to freebies, bonuses, discounts or a real money. What is most important here it would bring back the ownership to us rather than to companies that are providing the services.

Possible obstacles:

• Law regulations in different countries as to how data can be processed etc.;
• Companies policies, if you are not willing to share data you are not obliged to use our services;
• Greediness of people, if we will once get paid for something that previously we were giving “for free”, why not ask for more.

6. Global scoring index of people

Problem: Trustworthiness of people — how would you assess if a person passing you by is a law-abiding citizen or a criminal.

Solution description: Add people to a blockchain network, where they would be scored (same way as described in point 4.), building (or losing) their reputation points, that may have an impact on how they are being treated compared to others. Scoring with its weight could come from people, government, 3rd parties (banks etc.).

Possible obstacles:

• Ethics;
• Legal stand point and countries politics regulation;
• With current performance of blockchain networks, not possible on a global scale (can be possible in private solutions for brands — scoring customers etc.).

7. Resources sharing (computation power / tools etc.)

Problem: How to monetize, resources that we own but not using at the moment.

Solution description: Include resources that we own to a blockchain network, where they can be utilized by other parties of the network, when they are not being used. Examples of such resources may be: computational power, tools, transportation (cars / bikes etc.), green energy generated (by solar panels etc.).

Possible obstacles:

• Government regulations most likely once people will start to make profit on such things, taxes would pop out of nowhere;
• Limitations and insurances if tools or devices (cars etc.) will be abused;
• Change of mindset get people back to roots of sharing economy.

8. Land owning solution

Problem: Ownership of lands, illegal hijacking lands by “units” with power.

Solution description: Solution based on blockchain network for a land-owning case. First by bringing current state of possessions to a network, and next by leveraging potential of a blockchain — force tampering, not rightful changes will not be possible. Quarrels as to who is the rightful owner would be mining less as all the information along with its history would be in a decentralized network.

Possible obstacles:

• History transfer of current state to new decentralized blockchain solution;
• Should it be a global or country specific solution — what regulations and limitations each brings;
• Dealing with blasts from the past — once everything would be in a network how to modify the history if some solid documents would be found.

9. Law documents and all legal information in a blockchain network

Problem: Centralized place, with security flaws and rather weak access for an interested party.

Solution description: Bringing all law documents and legal information under blockchain network, making them accessible for interested parties, secure, immutable and trusted. Each new sentence will be added to a block creating a full set of history for each citizen, company etc. Exchange of information should be simplified as a decentralized nodes can be adopted in various needed places (from government perspective), documents will not go missing and will not be tampered with.

Possible obstacles:

• Government and law regulations;
• Most likely private or hybrid solution;
• Transfer of whole historical documents to system.

10. Global car information portal from general to details

Problem: Lack of proper and trusted information what was happening with the car if it is being sold to owner in another country

Solution description: Blockchain network with full set of information about a particular car, starting from manufacturing process, through each service visit ending on every transactions / sales agreement of the car. Each and every action done to car will be documented into a single global network, giving a possibility to authorities, potential buyers and owners or insurance companies to have complete view on to what has happened to a particular car.

Possible obstacles:

• Need for a global chain of mechanics, car repair shops that will support blockchain of car information portal;
• Solution will be useful for all new cars added to network, however it will be much harder to leverage it for all existing cars — as their history may differ from reality;
• Cross country collaboration;
• Scale of solution — number of cars * amount of changes being done.

What do you think, which of the above solutions is the most promising and have the highest potential? Looking forward to your comments.

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Feel free to expand your knowledge with following list of books, articles and videos explaining possible use cases of blockchain technology:

1. Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World by Don Tapscott, Alex Tapscott
2. The Business Blockchain: Promise, Practice, and Application of the Next Internet Technology by William Mougayar, Vitalik Buterin
3. 19 Industries The Blockchain Will Disrupt — Youtube clip by Future Thinkers
4. How the blockchain will radically transform the economy — TED talk by Bettina Warburg
5. https://www.statista.com/statistics/471264/iot-number-of-connected-devices-worldwide/
6. https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/ethereum-transactionfees.html
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-spending