For most of the common populations, whenever the word comes into their mind “called blockchain,” it actually refers to a particular instrument called a coin. The dominant coin of the blockchains that make the headlines is called Bitcoin. The blockchain was known to the world as an association with the coin based on digital currencies, but it now proves that there is much more to the concept. It can change an industry-from supply chain system management, healthcare and finance even till voting systems.
A blockchain operates as a decentralized and distributed ledger that captures a transaction across numerous computers safely, and transparently. Hence, no organization has the full control of the data; hence it is immovable and extraordinarily resistant to forgery or tampering. Given these distinctive features, these possess opportunities for transformation for industries interested in improving their efficiency, security, and transparency. Let’s see what blockchain technology is up to beyond cryptocurrency, and what its potential looks like in various sectors.
Supply Chain Transparency Management
One of the most promising applications of blockchain technology is in supply chain management. Supply chains are generally multifaceted systems whose components include manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, and retailers, each maintaining their records in separate systems. Such complexity creates inefficiencies, inaccuracies, and non-transparency.
Blockchain technology herein offers a remedy by keeping an up-to-date, one shared ledger to which all transactions are updated live. Therefore, an immutable record of the movement of goods through the entire supply chain is created. For example, companies like IBM and Maersk, have developed TradeLens, which is a collaboration between the two in creating an application powered by blockchain for streamlining global shipping, providing greater transparency and traceability.
Here, one can enumerate several benefits:
More Transparency: All the parties involved will ever have the same data available to them at the same time generally reducing chances for fraud or fighting over mistaking inputs or errors.
Higher Efficiency: Eliminating administrative overhead of paperwork means lower lag times caused by paperwork and intermediaries.
Greater Trust: Immutability thus ensures that the information is secure and, therefore, cannot be changed, which builds trust among supply chain collaborators.
Blockchain is making possible that kind of transparency : from the point of origin by way of tracking food products to ensuring ethically sourced materials.
Blockchain in Healthcare: Securing Patient Data
It has become a major problem in the healthcare sector to manage and secure patient data. Often, medical data are widely scattered among different agencies and systems, inhibiting efficiency and increasing the probability of errors and security risks. The decentralization and security of storing and sharing medical data are possible with the help of blockchain.
It may give the patients full ownership of their data and allow them to grant health care providers access to such data when it is needed. Inasmuch as blockchain records are immutable, patients will not be shamed knowing that their data has never been altered or tampered with. It easternizes possible coordination of different healthcare providers offering an obvious and transparent record of a patient’s medical history.
Here is how blockchain helps in healthcare:
Patient Data Protection and Privacy: The nature of Blockchain calls for encrypting and decentralizing the data making it immune to cyber threats.
Interoperability: Easily exchange data from one healthcare service provider to another without requiring any complex integrations or silos of data.
Reduced Fraud: By ensuring the integrity and availability of patient information, blockchain can help reduce fraud, such as billing fraud or identity theft, in the healthcare world.
For example, there is a project called MedRec which uses blockchain technology to develop secure and transparent medical records systems. Such projects already provide insight into how much the future of healthcare data management will look like.
Blockchain for Voting Systems
One of the possible betrayals and applications of blockchain falls under the larger scope of voting and democracy. At present, the existing voting systems suffer from evils such as voter fraud, lack of transparency, delayed results, etc. However, digital voting could actually provide the measures necessary to combat these evils since it offers transparency and security.
With blockchain, every vote would be entered directly into an unchangeable ledger ensuring that every vote is accurately counted but cannot be changed once cast; in addition, it provides a public sphere for the verification of all these election results.
Benefits of using blockchain in voting include:
Transparency and Accountability: Voter verifies that their vote is cast properly and that results are tamper proof from all angles.
Increased Security: Because socketing or tampering in ballots is not possible due to encryption of votes, it is almost indefeasible to hack or commit fraud with the non-centralized system.
Accessibility: A voting system can be entirely brought to the door of every citizen, for those who live outside their country or have a disability, with the possibility of voting as normally achieved by each and everyone else.
While this entire application is very much in its “cradle”, companies like Voatz and Follow My Vote already provide the services of testing their blockchain-enabled voting applications.
The Real Estate Blockchain: More Simplified Transactions
The real estate industry is by far the most sluggish and heavy from voluminous paperwork, around too many intermediaries, and much less transparency in actual transaction matters. Blockchain technology’s beginning to speed up the process of documenting property transactions to be much more secure and efficient.
The property transactions would process as follows:
Automating Transaction Security- A smart contract is the self-executing contract in which the terms of the agreement are directly written into lines of code. With this contract, property transfer can be automated under certain conditions, and ownership can pass over without usually engaging in the intermediaries like lawyers and brokers and has a faster pace.
Transparency and Anti-fraud-Since Blockchain has the property ownership records that are immutable, the verification of fraudulent activity will be minimized, and properties would know rightfully that the titles are sound.
Fractional Ownership: Blockchain could also allow fractional ownership of real properties, allowing investment in real properties by the masses without actual acquisition of the property. This will broaden the real estate market to numerous investors.
Thus, all the paperwork and dependence on intermediaries could revamp the process of transactions in real estate into confined transaction time with enhanced security and high visibility.
Blockchain in the Protection of Intellectual Property
Protection of intellectual property is a nightmare for creative people. Their work usually is cat walked by other artists, musicians, writers, or any other creator, which they had invested time and imagination in creating. Blockchain technology can help regulate a verifiable, secure record of ownership of digital assets.
With blockchain, creators can:
Protect Their Work: Blockchain is an immutable ledger that can help prove the ownership and date of creation of a work to fight infringement much easier.
Track Use and Licensing: For example, smart contracts can automate certain licensing requirements to ensure that a creator is paid fairly whenever their work is used or shared.
Create Direct Payment Infrastructure: More significantly, through blockchain, peer-to-peer payment can now happen directly between the creator and consumer without needing a publisher or record label as an intermediary.
Myco and Po.et are two platforms that currently monetize intellectual property and manage them by enabling everyone in this context to secure their digital content on the basis of blockchain technology.
True Transformative Power of Banking Blockchains
Blockchain technology is much beyond being associated with cryptocurrency as much as it is seen today. Changing industries with redefining innovation are of huge potential impact ranging from helping supply chain transparency, secure management of healthcare data, digital voting systems and property deals, and even intellectual property rights: real-time solutions for many problems for businesses.
Application of blockchain technology will blossom with time, and van will really offer valuable new ways to create value, enhance security, and manage efficiency in industries. The technology-adoption transition is not complete; there are still a few hurdles to cross, such as scalability with respect to the possibility for regulation and the adoption of it internationally. Nevertheless, that potential is too great to ignore. The level at which it promises to be important in the future is the way that it will change the ecosystem of how we think about data, transactions, and trust in the digital age.