Even after all this hustle, why do we need a system like Blockchain? Yeah, we get it, security, integrity and stuff..... But that can be taken care of by traditional systems as well. DUHH! So why in the world do we need Blockchain???
Chill.
Here I have got 10 real life scenarios where Blockchain proves to be smarter that the existing traditional transaction mechanisms. We are gonna learn about them briefly one by one. So hold off to all your questions. Here's your answer!!.
Cross-border payments:
Conducting transactions overseas has always been a tedious task. This involves a lot intermediary processes and often proves to be costly. According to the World Bank, the transaction fees for cross-border payments is approximately 7 percent, which is clearly high!! (0_0)
Blockchain solves this problem by its distributed ledger technology expanding its reach all over the world. It eliminates all the middlemen and makes it a direct, easy and faster process. It is believed that, using Blockchain technology for cross-border payments cuts out the transaction fees by approximately 50%. Also once the transaction gets recorded in the ledger, it almost immediately gets executed (in average span of 5 seconds). Since, the transactions on the Blockchain cannot be tampered with or reverted, it ensures security on quite a high level. Many companies have adopted Blockchain to conduct cross-border payments, for example, Circle, WeTrade, etc.
Supply Chain Management:
The biggest issue with supply chain management is trust and reliability. A lot of fraudulent activities have been witnessed over the years in the system and at the end the customer becomes the victim. Supply chain is accustomed with most of the industries and defines the interoperability of the same. Therefore, it is a very crucial system that has to be in concern.
Here's where Blockchain comes into play. With high scalability and transparent network, the products can be tracked in real-time and any mischief can be pointed out easily. From manufacturer to retailer, then finally to the distributer, customer can see their product all along its journey and can be assured of the delivery in an estimated time frame. Considering this reliable and scalable nature of the network, some companies like Openport and Walmart have adopted Blockchain for their supply chain management.
Accountability Issues with Contracts and Agreements:
All the important decisions or asset transfers are traditionally done by creating contracts and agreements to officially assign the true owner. In this process, the concerned parties have to indulge in tons of paperwork and documentation for legitimate proof of any transaction made. This is really a hectic task, but has to be completed to ensure trust between the participating parties in traditional system.
Blockchain lays down an easier way to encounter this tedious process. It provides a concept of smart contracts. WHAAATT!? Yes! A smart contract is a piece of code that can be stored on Blockchain defining the functions that can be executed by the performing parties with certain terms and conditions laid down in the contract code itself. Now since the code is stored in the Blockchain, it can not be changed or tampered with, which ensures a great level of trust among the parties. we will study about smart contracts in detail in further posts ahead. The real life examples of this use case of Blockchain technology can be drawn from companies like, Tradelanse, Tradeix, etc.
Identity Theft:
Identity theft is very common nowadays. An individual's personal information is maintained by centralized authorities which are relied upon but any malicious activity can easily tamper with a person's identity. Criminals can easily steal someone's identity to sneak out of any suspicion posed on to him. This is an issue of major concern and involves high risk in trusting a third party to keep your personal information safe and secure.
Blockchain solves this problem by provides every individual, participating in the network, a keypair- Private key and public key. The public key is exposed to the network and is used to identify the person in visible records stored on the blockchain. On the other hand, private key is kept secret with the owner, which he uses to access his data. You keep your private key stored on your end and no third party is involved in maintenance of your personal information. Therefore, Blockchain eliminates all the intermediaries responsible to ensure reliability. Companies like Sovrin and Uport use this mechanism to secure their customers' identities.
Data Protection in Health Care Sectors:
The major issue faced by health care organizations is the massive amount of data and records of patients that need to be managed correctly and appropriately for it is concerned with someone's life. Even in case of transferring the records of the patient from one hospital to another requires a lot of paperwork and can be tampered with. This clearly ain't a convenient way of handling patient's data. There has to be a better option for hospitals to manage data in an efficient manner. UMM...BLOCKCHAIN?? YEPP!
Blockchain provides an excellent storage mechanism to keep patient's data secure and public, so that it can be accessed by any hospital concerned. In fact, some of the patient's data can be kept private as per the need using secure codes or hashes that can only be decrypted by patient's private key. This ensures high scalability and ease of access to the necessary information without requiring any unnecessary amount of money and efforts. Hospitals now don't have to rely on each other to transfer the records of the patient. They can easily access the data from Blockchain and ensure a faster treatment process for public. BurstIQ and MedicalChain have adopted Blockchain for the purpose.
Digital Copyright and Piracy:
On terms of talents and creations, one deserves full credit and reward. Traditionally this is achieved by giving a copyright of the asset to the owner. But, again many cases of infringement have happened drawing people's concern towards it. People lost lots of money due to piracy and the assets lost their values overtime.
Blockchain helps artists create metadata of their content in a digitized manner, where they can store timestamp and IP rights securely on the ledger. Any mischief can be easily tracked in real time and can be further dealt with legal proceedings. The creator can use smart contracts to conduct micropayments with customers. Sony, one of the most popular industry adopted Blockchain to prevent piracy attacks and secure copyrights of their content.
Governance:
Most of the government sectors adopt traditional methods to conduct all its processes which are quite slow and tedious. Also, all the governmental records maintained by centralized authorities are highly prone to data breaches. This raises possibilities of conflict even in a minimal task which creates distrust among public in regards with their government. This further consequents problems in state.
To deal with it Blockchain provides a decentralized system that allows people to share resources easily and in a more secure way with complete transparency. It also reduces the labor-intensive tasks, by automating process via smart contracts. Dubai is looking forward to adopt Blockchain for its government policy.
Crowdfunding & Fundraising:
Crowdfunding has been a boom for new businesses and startups to raise funds for their project and generate profits and compensate the investors with returns. Well, that's just an ideal way of fundraising. In the real world, this system involves a lot of issues regarding security, investor abuse and even malicious transactions. This leads to investors losing trust and interest in crowdfunding platforms.
Blockchain paves a way for both investors and fundraisers to participate securely in a transparent manner. The startup can issue tokens which can be bought by the investors by fiat currencies as company shares. These tokens are termed as security tokens or just securities. Petro proved to be successful in adopting Blockchain for fundraising, raising approximately $5 billion for its company.
Real Estate:
Buying a property isn't an easy task with the traditional Real Estate policies. There is a high amount of paperwork and intermediaries involved generating further expense for the buyer. Not only it is long and slow, but also stressful. Even after completion, it is prone to illegal activities like property frauds, etc.
Blockchain allows you to digitize your assets and properties and store them securely over the distributed ledger. Furthermore, since none of the data can be tampered with, it is a great logging mechanism to keep track of older transactions that can be used to prove the asset ownership. This ensure faster and secure transfer of assets among the concerned parties. Real life example of this system can be seen within companies like Propy, PropertyClub, etc.
Sports Industry:
Sports industry also runs on crowdfunding parameters by selling tickets of the sport events to the public. It holds a promise to the athletes to help generate them performance-based income. But, this system is a bit rare and unoptimized.
Blockchain helps athletes to create their smart contracts and issue tokens for their team. Public can place bets on athlete's performance and get incentivized. All the transactions and interactions are recorded on immutable ledger. Athletes earn through the crowdfunding contracts promising better performance. For example, SportyCo, PlayerTokens, etc.
Other than these, there are a lot of other detailed case studies where Blockchain proved to be an efficient alternative to traditional systems.
This is it for now. STAY TUNED !
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