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The future of blockchain is already here, and banking is not the only industry affected. Lets see how industries like law enforcement and ride-hailing will be affected as well.
Blockchain technology was originally known as the basis of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, but in essence, blockchain is a virtual distributed accounting technology that can record and is suitable for a large number of digital transactions, and is now spreading in many industries.
The development of blockchain technology has far exceeded its development in the field of banking and cryptocurrency. Although annual investment in blockchain companies has fallen from the highs of 2018, investment in 2020 has more than doubled compared to 2017.
According to data from CB Insight’s market sizing tool,Annual spending on blockchain solutions will reach nearly $16 billion by 2023. Industries from insurance to gaming are seeing blockchain applications。
The popularity of Bitcoin is a testament to the application of blockchain in the financial field. Entrepreneurs have come to believe that Bitcoin can change many more industries. Transparent, traceable ledgers of transaction data have practically endless use cases. In particular, blockchain technology operates through a decentralized platform that does not require central control, thus making them resistant to fraud.
Awareness of this technology is being raised across multiple domains, from infrastructure to public policy, as companies seek to increase the transparency and accuracy of their information through digital information ecosystems.secondary title
Financial Services
banking
The development of blockchain and banking is just beginning. From a macro perspective, banks are key stores of value and transfer centers. As a digital, secure, and tamper-proof distributed ledger, blockchain can perform the same functions as banks, improve the accuracy of the financial services ecosystem, and enable information sharing.
For example, Credit Suisse partnered with New York-based startup Paxos to use blockchain technology to settle U.S. stock trades starting in March 2020. At the same time, JPMorgan Chase Group has entered the blockchain field through JP Morgan Coin (Translators Note: JPMorgan Chase itself issued a US dollar stablecoin that is only circulated among institutions), and plans to use this tool to facilitate institutional accounts. transaction. Other banks such as Goldman Sachs and Citigroup have also experimented with blockchain, using Axonis Axcore blockchain to automate the matching and reconciliation of equity swap derivative contracts.
More broadly, the blockchain has the potential to make breakthroughs in the key 5T+ banking services provided by banks through its means of decentralization, from payment services to clearing and settlement system services.
Facilitating payments has been very lucrative for banks, with cross-border transactions generating $224 million in payments revenue in 2019. Blockchain technology offers a more secure and inexpensive payment method, reducing the need for third-party verification and shortening the processing time of traditional bank transfers.
Blockchain company Ripple serves more than 300 clients, including financial institutions such as Banco International and Western Union, with the aim of making cross-border payments more efficient. Its product xCurrent provides banks with a two-way communication protocol allowing real-time messaging and settlement.
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Stock Trading Hedge Funds
After years of corporate effort to simplify the process of buying, selling and trading stocks, a new breed of blockchain-focused startups are looking to automate and secure the process more efficiently than any previous solution.
T.com, a subsidiary of Overstock, uses blockchain technology to enable online trading of stocks. The TZERO platform integrates a cryptographically secure distributed ledger with existing transaction processes to reduce settlement time and costs, and increase transparency and auditability.
Forming partnerships with existing trading networks and exchanges can help blockchain grow in this space.
Blockchain company Chain, which was acquired by Stellar in 2018, created a real-time blockchain system that successfully connected the infrastructure of the Nasdaq stock exchange and Citibank.
Most recently, Nasdaq partnered with R3 to build a platform that financial institutions using R3s enterprise blockchain software solution, Corda, can use to create and manage their own digital asset allocations.
At the same time, Numerai designed the model of a hedge fund, employing a group of traders and quantitative traders and spreading them out. The company, backed by investment institutions including top venture capital First Round Capital and Union Square Venture, sent thousands of quantified encryption data sets from different locations to traders and asked them to build predictive models, and the best Contributors will receive Numeraire tokens (tokens, encrypted and negotiable digital rights and interests). Numerai then took the strategy and created a meta-model to trade.
crowdfunding
crowdfunding
The crowdfunding industry provides conditions for the formation of disintermediation capital by giving supporters (also known as pledors) or individual investors the ability to directly provide funds for entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, which is similar to the foundation of the blockchain characteristics match.
For example, the movie BRAID raised $1.7 million in activity fees through the issuance of crowdsale tokens on the Ethereum-based open source crowdfunding platform Weifund, becoming the first feature film to be crowdfunded in the cryptocurrency field.
Initial Coin Offering (lCO) is another example of blockchain-powered crowdfunding. In an ICO, a company sells a cryptocurrency-backed token within its company in the same way a public company sells stock. CoinList, a partnership between Protocol Labs and AngelList, is bringing digital assets into the mainstream by helping blockchain companies build legally compliant ICOs.
(Translators Note: ICO was popular in 2017, but due to the lack of supervision, there have been many frauds and scams. In order to avoid huge financial risks, my country banned ICO in China on September 4, 2017. However, in In foreign countries, there are still many organizations actively promoting the legal compliance of ICO, and there are also STO issuance methods with stronger supervision)
Many new startups have emerged in the ICO ecosystem, such as Waves, a platform for storing, managing and issuing digital assets, and the Republic crypto protocol, which aims to help people invest in ICOs with as little as $10.
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Encrypted trading platform
One of the ways blockchain reduces traditional cybersecurity risks is by removing the need for human intermediaries, thereby reducing the risk of hacking, corruption, or human error.
Ironically, some of the most successful blockchain companies are centralized middlemen. However, many new projects are “disrupting” the buying and selling of blockchain-based cryptocurrencies by putting entire exchanges on the blockchain.
One of the companies to watch is Enigma, a company backed by MIT and Flybridge Capita, which developed Catalyst as an off-chain decentralized exchange and investment platform that works without requiring a third party to act as a clearinghouse.
Another notable decentralized exchange is Ethereum-based 0x.
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Wills and Inheritance
Wills are a highly specific type of contract for which a blockchain smart contract solution is an ideal use case. In addition to verifying the actual circumstances of the decedents death, will-related litigation often involves challenging the wills authenticity, that is, whether the legal interpretation matches the decedents intentions.
While the application of blockchain technology will not completely eliminate these challenges, it will make it easier to identify factual information, provide verifiable transaction data, and dismiss worthless claims.
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Accounting
As the banking industry begins to use cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, accountants are starting to follow suit.
Accountants work with files that contain vast amounts of personal or organizational information, from tax bills and bank statements to spreadsheets. Layering in blockchain technology could allow accounting firms to keep track of this sensitive data as it is processed.
The data traceability of blockchain technology can also help in the automation of certain accounting services using artificial intelligence, thereby reducing human errors and incidents of fraud.
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loans and credit
Traditional banks and lenders underwrite loans are based on a credit reporting system, using a credit report provided by one of the three major credit management rating agencies, Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax, to assess your risk of not being able to repay.
This centralized system can be bad for consumers. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) estimates that one in five Americans has a potentially material error in their credit score, which is negatively impacting their ability to get a loan. Furthermore, centralizing this sensitive information within 3 institutions creates a great deal of vulnerability. Equifax was hacked in September 2017, exposing the credit information of nearly 150 million Americans.
Using blockchain technology offers a cheaper, more efficient and more secure way to extend personal loans to a wider group of consumers. With a decentralized, more secure and encrypted payment history registry, consumers can apply for loans based on global credit scores.
Insurance
Insurance
Most blockchain applications in the insurance industry today are focused on improving operational efficiency. Instead of developing new products, insurance companies are researching how to use blockchain to reduce costs, improve market efficiency, and provide a better customer experience.
For example, using blockchain to create a single source of truth for business between parties has the potential to significantly reduce the time and cost for insurance companies to deal with issues.
Insurance applies blockchain to collaborate across borders or process cross-border transactions, taking advantage of the immutable and version-controllable aspects of blockchain technology.
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Car manufacturer
Recording physical assets on the blockchain is also one of its use cases. Blockchain technology is making good headway in the auto parts supply chain. Tamper-proof and neutral resilient systems to track ownership can be easily built using blockchain technology. Paper records are vulnerable to forgery or physical damage, and central databases are subject to hacking, human error, and/or tampering, but blockchain is immutable, and no single entity controls the ledger.
Blockchain can be used to track components in the supply chain and weed out those that are counterfeit. The technology has also had a major impact on vehicle recalls, with 13 million recalls in the first half of 2020 alone. According to blockchain technology, with the record of parts and components, targeted recalls can be carried out from suppliers to individual vehicles.
The Mobility Open Blockchain protocol (MOBI), used by automakers such as Ford, BMW, Honda and GM, has been working on car and parts tracking initiatives. Its Vehicle Identity (VID) standard initiative provides a birth certificate for vehicles, tracking maintenance history and vehicle registration records in a shared ledger, even across borders.
In another example, Daimler has partnered with Ocean Protocol, a Singapore-based company dedicated to decentralized data exchange, to explore how blockchain technology can be used to share supply chain data between its manufacturing centers and partners.
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Car rental and sales
The experience of leasing, buying and selling a vehicle is notoriously irrelevant to all interested parties in the transaction. But blockchain technology can change that.
In 2015, Visa partnered with transaction management startup DocuSign to use blockchain to streamline the car rental process, turning it into a simple click, sign and drive process.
Using the Visa-DocuSign tool, customers select the car they want to lease, and the transaction will take place on the public distributed ledger of the blockchain. The customer in the drivers seat signs the lease agreement and insurance policy, and the blockchain will update the information in real time.
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take a taxi
Ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft represent the inverse of decentralization, operating essentially as dispatch centers and using algorithms to control their fleet of drivers (and dictate fees). Blockchain technology could inject new options into ride-hailing: drivers and riders could create a more user-driven, value-driven marketplace based on a distributed ledger.
Arcade City, for example, facilitates transactions through the blockchain system. Arcade City operates similar to other ride-hailing companies, but allows drivers to determine their rates (taking a percentage of the ride fare) and interact via blockchain records.
This allows Arcade City to attract professional drivers who would rather build their own transportation business than be controlled by corporate headquarters. Arcade City drivers have the freedom to set their own rates, build their own customer base, and provide delivery or roadside assistance. Wait for additional services. Arcade City announced in January 2021 that it would open source its code to enable more peer-to-peer commerce.
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trucking
Objects tracked and recorded using blockchain technology are not just digital assets, but physical items such as delivery trucks. While many of the other industries discussed involve public records, private blockchain networks offer possibilities of their own.
We have discussed the public chain blockchain technology for sharing information in many industries, but in fact, the private chain also has its application value.
The Transportation Chain Alliance (BITA) has been formed to develop industry standards and educate members in its participating network. The largest commercial blockchain consortium in existence, with 500 members, is developing the framework that will transform the trucking industry.
Blockchain can improve transactions, shipment tracking and fleet management to protect assets and increase fleet efficiency. It could help track contamination issues in the food supply chain, for example, by tracking a truck loaded with ingredients, noting whether safe storage conditions were maintained during any delays. Additionally, it can help optimize routes by matching truck drivers with items to be trucked in a certain area.
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Aerospace Defense
According to Accenture, 61% of aerospace and defense companies are using blockchain technology or distributed ledger solutions. Blockchain technology has the potential to play a role in this industry to simplify and authenticate parts inventory, authenticate trackers, and more.
For example, Honeywell Aerospace’s GoDirect Trade unit is an aerospace parts marketplace that uses blockchain for parts resale. The manufacturing and maintenance histories of 25,000 parts are stored on the blockchain. After parts are refurbished, this data is updated immediately in accordance with FAA requirements, avoiding the most laborious and paperwork of aerospace parts resale.
Meanwhile, France-based aerospace and defense contractor Thales Group deployed blockchain at one of its new manufacturing locations to track naval equipment and other components made at the facility in order to comply with NATO standards.
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air travel
Think of the data required when booking a flight, name, date of birth, credit card number, immigration details, destination and sometimes hotel or car rental information depending on how the flight is booked.
Applying blockchain technology to secure and coordinate this data could make travel safer and more convenient for travelers. Converting paper tickets to digital tokens takes security to a new level. Using smart contracts as part of the ticket can help airlines control the sale of tickets and provide verification for customers, and can also be used to create more accurate aircraft maintenance logs, prevent overbooking, and more.
For example, Russia-based S7 Airlines deployed a private Ethereum-based blockchain and smart contracts to issue and sell tickets. According to the report, the platform reduced the settlement time between airlines and agents from 14 days to 23 seconds. In 2019, the airline announced that monthly pass sales processed on its blockchain had reached $1 million.
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hotel
Large hotel chains lose 10% to 15% of their total revenue on commissions paid to third-party reservation services. Small hotel chains and independent hotels have to give 18% to 22% of their revenue to third-party services.
Blockchain technology can help reduce middlemen, encourage direct interaction between suppliers and consumers and reduce costs.
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infrastructure
Industrial Internet of Things
Many companies are leveraging blockchain technology to allow any device in the system to connect, interact and even transact securely independent of a central authority.
In 2015, IBM and Samsung announced a proof of concept called Autonomous Decentralized Peer-to-Peer Telemetry, which uses blockchain technology to form the backbone of a decentralized network of IoT devices. Through ADEPT, the blockchain will become a public ledger for a large number of devices, eliminating the need for a central hub to coordinate communication between them.
Without a central control system to identify them, these devices will be able to communicate autonomously, update software, check for errors and perform energy management.
In 2017, South Koreas Hyundai Merchant Marine Co., Ltd. (HMM) held a trial using the blockchain system developed by Samsung SDS, using IoT devices to monitor ships in real time. Paperless operations were used for ship arrival and departure , bill of lading and cargo tracking.
More recently, companies like Helium and NetObjex have launched blockchain-based networks of IoT devices in the fields of internet infrastructure and smart city transportation, respectively.
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3D printing
3D printing and additive manufacturing (that is, building 3D objects by adding layer after layer of material) are technology-driven processes involving digital files that can be easily transferred with the click of a mouse. As a result, parts and products are more easily shared and tracked, requiring smarter digital supply networks and supply chains.
Using blockchain technology to support these evolving infrastructures can eliminate security gaps, protect intellectual property from theft, and streamline project management processes, ultimately helping the 3D printing and additive manufacturing industries scale.
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construction, building and building
Construction is a highly regulated industry that employs a wide variety of tradesmen to work on often complex projects. Verifying a merchants identity, quality of work, and reliability can be difficult and time-consuming. A blockchain-based ecosystem can help address this challenge, making it easier for the average developer to verify identity and track the progress of multiple teams.
Blockchain technology can also help ensure that building materials are sourced from the right place and their quality guaranteed. At the same time, smart contracts can automatically issue payments related to project nodes, making timely payments easier.
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real estate
Pain points of buying and selling property include possible lack of transparency during and after the transaction, extensive paperwork required, possible fraud and possible errors in public records. Blockchain provides a way to reduce the need to keep paper notes and speed up transactions, helping stakeholders improve efficiency and reducing transaction costs for all parties involved.
Real estate blockchain applications can help record, track, and transfer land titles, real estate deeds, liens, and more, and help ensure that all documents are accurate and verifiable.
Propy is building a blockchain-based smart contract platform to provide secure home buying services. All documents are signed and stored securely online, and deeds and other contracts are recorded using blockchain technology.
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energy management
Energy management is another industry that has historically been highly concentrated. To conduct energy transactions in the United States and the United Kingdom, you must go through a well-established power holding company such as Duke Energy or National Grid, or deal with distributors who buy electricity from large power companies.
As in other industries, distributed ledgers can reduce (or eliminate) the need for intermediaries. Companies like LO3 Energy are rethinking the traditional energy trading process.
LO3 Energys product, Pando, runs on the open-source blockchain platform Energy Web Chain, enabling the utilitys customers to transact in a decentralized energy production scheme, effectively allowing people to produce, buy and sell energy.
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medical insurance
health information exchange
Healthcare organizations cannot securely share data across platforms. Better data collaboration between different medical institutions ultimately means more accurate diagnoses, more effective treatments and more cost-effective care.
Using blockchain technology could enable hospitals, payers, and other parties in the healthcare value chain to share access to their networks without compromising data security and integrity.
HealthVerity is one of the participating companies in this space, combining health data exchange with blockchain offerings to manage amendment rights and access rights.
Still others are working to use blockchain technology to better manage supplier information.
Aetna, Recizant, Humana, Multiplan, QuestDiagnostics, UnitedHealth Group and others have created the Synaptic Health Alliance project to join forces to ensure their data is up to date. By sharing information with each other, these companies can reduce their workload because data is stored and updated in the same shared, accessible database.
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Reimbursement Management
Healthcare follow-up is slow, complicated and expensive. Blockchains built on data standards have the potential to speed up some of these processes and reduce costs.
One of the areas where this might be possible is claims management, where there are intermediaries who are standardizing data in complex and variable procedures. The job requires access to complex data from disparate entities: payers must know what services a patient received and the exact plan for treatment; doctors need to know how much they are billing patients; and everyone wants to know where in the claims process they are.
Change Healthcare has built a system called the Smart Care Network, which tracks the entire flow of reimbursement, tracking each transaction listed above (data submitted for review, review itself, approval or denial, etc.). The company has also improved the speed and scalability of processing transactions, which has been a bottleneck for many public blockchain projects.
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Pharmaceutical Industry
The pharmaceutical industry is not known for rapid development. While the division is focused on innovation and problem solving, its complicated when it comes to clinical testing, FDA approval, and more.
Using a blockchain ledger can create a more efficient system, opening the door to faster innovation, better managed production and smarter medical data security.
Blockchain could also enhance making drug production safer. If something goes wrong, it can be caught and traced to the source. This facilitates product recalls, allowing manufacturers to quickly contact retailers to mitigate the impact of unsafe drugs on patient health and business finances.
Chronicled launched the MediLedger network with several large pharmaceutical companies and drug supply chain giants. The project uses a blockchain-based system to track who was exposed to what drug and when, and to verify drug returns.
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Research and Clinical Trials
In addition to better data sharing, blockchain offers the opportunity to improve healthcare before the treatment phase: in the field of research and clinical trials.
Effective research and clinical trials require coordination of multiple sites and stakeholders, as well as careful management of large volumes of data from diverse sources.
An important function that blockchain can fulfill is connecting disparate data within a study, which often occurs in different research institutions and is managed by different researchers. This would avoid the need to coordinate disparate databases together to create a traceable record of what participants did.
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Government and Public Records
The management of public services is another area where blockchain could help reduce paperwork, reduce fraud, and increase accountability between authorities and the agencies they serve.
Some states in the United States have independently developed some blockchain-related systems to reap the dividends brought by the technology: the Delaware Blockchain Initiative (Delaware Blockchain Initiative) was launched in 2016 to create an appropriate legal infrastructure for distributed ledger sharing , to improve the efficiency and speed of registration services.
vote
vote
Elections require voter identities to be authenticated, ballots to be securely recorded, and victors to be determined through credible statistics. In the future, blockchain tools can serve as the infrastructure for voting, tracking and counting votes. By eliminating voter fraud and spoofing, it is possible to avoid the need for recounts.
With ballots recorded via the blockchain, the government and voters will have a verifiable audit trail to ensure that ballots cannot be altered or deleted, or illegitimate ballots added. Follow My Vote blockchain voting company recently made its patent pending end-to-end blockchain voting solution public.
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Firearm Tracking
Blockchains distributed ledger offers some opportunities for gun ownership and use. If information related to gun ownership is recorded and linked via blockchain, it could provide a networked infrastructure to trace the provenance of weapons when they are used illegally.
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law enforcement
In police investigations, it is crucial to maintain the integrity of the evidence chain. Therefore, through the distributed storage method of the blockchain, records that are difficult to forge can provide more security for the evidence processing process. Additionally, blockchain could be used to flag certain types of transaction patterns, giving the police a tip when a person is engaging in suspicious financial activity.
Startups are bringing innovations that benefit law enforcement. Chronicled is developing a sealable, tamper-resistant blockchain registry system with a near-field communication chip, providing an ideal solution for evidence management in law enforcement.
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federal mail
Even the USPS is considering using blockchain to improve operations and services. Distributed ledger technology could help create a tracking system that reduces costs for the USPS and saves time for postal workers.
The Inspector General’s Office released a report in 2016 summarizing ways the agency could use blockchain, including to streamline its financial services (such as money orders), build a better “postal Internet of Things,” improve consumer authentication, and Streamline supply chain management.
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Public transit
Urban growth has also put pressure on many transportation systems, which are often expensive and inefficient to operate.
Adopting blockchain technology can help cities better understand how residents choose public transportation.
British DOVU users can share their commuting routes and daily traffic data, including how they use buses, trains, shared bikes, and even walking paths, through a blockchain-based application, and then be rewarded with encrypted tokens. The company has struck deals with automakers and mass transit companies.
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waste management
Recycling is one of the best ways to reduce waste in landfills. But the baffling and labor-intensive approach didnt pay off much. Blockchain-based solutions can help optimize recycling systems that already exist.
Many companies have sprung up to encourage recycling. The Plastic Bank offers currency or digital tokens in exchange for used plastic and is working with IBM to roll out its recycling solutions globally. W2V Eco Solutions is a more localized platform, which enables the community to reward those who sort recycling correctly with tokens. RecycleGO, a blockchain-based software, could allow recycling companies to better track recycling items and thus better optimize their recycling activities in the local supply chain.
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public assistance
Adopting a blockchain system can help us simplify the public assistance system. Free it from the shackles of bureaucracy. The United Nations World Food Program has been using blockchain to distribute humanitarian aid to refugees in a secure and private manner. As refugees are often unable to open bank accounts, WFP is able to use blockchain and biometrics to provide assistance directly to them, registering and checking relevant data.
In Jordan, WFP has installed iris scanners in grocery stores inside refugee camps to securely identify individuals in need of humanitarian assistance. All transaction records are stored in a private chain in a timely manner, and payments are automatically transferred from individual blockchain-enabled accounts.
The original report comes from CB Insights, an emerging technology insight platform that provides clear information on emerging technologies and new business strategies. The Chinese version is compiled and organized by the Chain Market team, and the English copyright belongs to the original author. Please contact the editor for Chinese reprint.
The original report comes from CB Insights, an emerging technology insight platform that provides clear information on emerging technologies and new business strategies. The Chinese version is compiled and organized by the Chain Market team, and the English copyright belongs to the original author. Please contact the editor for Chinese reprint.
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