Why we are betting high on blockchain? Building blocks of the future!
No one has seen the future but Blockchain seems to be there already!!!
This is an introductory article on blockchain and its future use cases that will drive the global adoption of technology in near future.
Blockchain is the single biggest manifestation of the Internet world whose growing implementation is set to transform every single aspect of our lives in the times to follow. It is expected to impact and influence all market verticals, technology and transaction platforms. Blockchain, which in general is a notarised ledger, has come to be a ground-breaking invention in the modern times, whose acceptability and market share is only going to increase exponentially.
Global adoption of Blockchain
With a notarized, decentralized, computer algorithm at the back of it, blockchain enabled infrastructures have completely eliminated the role of any third parties. It makes the users empowered. The transactions using this are immutable, fast, secure and verifiable with minimum cost and maximum trust with no reported cases of hacking at all. Blockchain has traversed from Wall Street to the main street already.
- The numbers speak for themselves
Every major financial institution is doing Blockchain research these days and the increasing market spending on Blockchain technology is perceptible from the graphical trends below-
Source- https://www.raconteur.net/business/the-future-of-blockchain-in-8-charts
- Trends in Blockchain technology
Bitcoin was the first major innovation of Blockchain and it today has a market share of over $20Billion. Not until the Bitcoin phenomenon, the realization that Blockchain can be used separately from Bitcoins could evolve. Later came “smart contract” embodied in gen 2 Blockchain called Ethereum that facilitated loans and bonds, taking Bitcoins a step further. Then evolved the “POS” or proof of stakes where the largest computing power holder groups or the miners make decisions. Now is the Blockchain scaling era to make the transactions faster.
All this in less than 10 years is incredible!
See the rising venture capital funding in the trends below-
Source- https://www.raconteur.net/business/the-future-of-blockchain-in-8-charts
The resistance to faster adoption of blockchain
As more and more people join the cryptocurrency bandwagon to reap the rising markets, short-term profit making and speculative trading have made cryptocurrencies the most volatile investment.
We often use the words bitcoin and blockchain interchangeably. But we need to understand blockchain isn’t all about cryptocurrencies rather cryptocurrency is one of the potential implementation of this technology.
You can watch the following video to understand major differences between blockchain and cryptocurrencies.
It is true that if there were no speculative buying, Bitcoin’s value wouldn’t have risen from zero that it was initially but too much unpredictability as a result of too frequent buying and selling for profit booking have left cryptocurrencies to be a roller-coaster. This brings uncertainty and bad publicity for the revolutionary technology Blockchain, something that has innumerable potential long-term applications. Such speculative cryptocurrency investors and traders do immense damage to the future of this novel idea. Remember, Blockchain is a disruptive and viable system with a promising long-term future and not an on the go quick profit-making investment.
Blockchain as a means to build a more secure and transparent future — potential use cases
Blockchain’s applications are increasing rapidly, already touching lots of domains like trade processing and settlement in asset management, claim processing and settlements, cross-border and government intervention free payments, smart property investment, unconventional money landing and smart contractors, supply chain sensors etc.
Blockchain can facilitate a self-management platform to companies, foundations, NGO’s, academic institutions and private citizens. One potential use would be for identity management that can be used for maintaining electoral records and polling also, thus contributing to strengthening democracy.
With a huge body of support for this distributed ledger technology by JP Morgan Chase, Ethereum, IBM, Coinbase and others, it’s only about time that it becomes a core behind everything. Airbnb, Uber, and Amazon have cut the middlemen, but the fact remains that we now have them acting as the mediators for our services. Future use cases of Blockchain include eliminating these middlemen as well- peer to peer connection would mean anyone with something someone needs gets full dues.
Music streamers like Spotify and Apple Music are also middlemen with endless possibilities for Blockchain to eliminate them. Cryptocurrency was just the start, Blockchain has endless applications totally untapped. The solid foundation of Blockchain behind cryptocurrency is going to change the world in ways beyond our imagination. From insurance to certifications and from land records to health-related data storage, Blockchain is set to revolutionize everything.
Need we say more about the promising future of Blockchain!
The robustness and trust behind Blockchain idea make it fit for use in passport management and other certificates like birth, wedding and death certificates etc. They can be used for personal identifications like SSN and Adhaar and can be used for security and tax compliance purposes.
For the secure and fault tolerant it is, the sky is the limit for Blockchain.
