Effect Of Blockchain Development Across Industries: A Peek Into The Future
Soon, we will turn the calendar in 2019, where the major stock indexes that have recently crashed in the market are expected to hit dozens of new all-time highs. Among all the stock indexes, cryptocurrency- the digital money is the one that has stolen the show with 1000% gains in the course of over 10 years.
Well, the people debate over the record-breaking exploits of cryptocurrencies that whether it will break its previous records in the near future, or eventually, the bitcoin bubble will pop. The conclusion to the argument in the favor or in the against of the cryptocurrency investment will arrive in the near future, but what’s interesting is the technology that underpins the cryptocurrency like- Bitcoins, Ethereum, Litecoins, and others.
The underlying trends of blockchain are is taking the center stage in the universe beyond bitcoins. In layman’s terms, blockchain is a decentralized public ledger where every record is stored on a decentralized network are immutable in nature and can be shared without any intermediary interference.
The greater transparency, enhanced security, high efficiency and speed, improved traceability, and reduced costs in the transactions make the technology a lot more promising than bitcoins, which are pushing all sizes of the businesses for blockchain development and realize its significant business benefits.
The research states that the global blockchain technology market is projected to grow 2.3 billion US dollars by 2021.
The digital transformation that Blockchain is bringing across various industry verticals with their percentage share:
With the increasing market size and due relevance for the generations to come, blockchain is finding its several use cases across diverse industry verticals.
Following are the industries that have mastered the blockchain implementation and witnessed the advantages in galore:
Supply chain management
The supply chain industry is loaded with the myriad of challenges where most of them are related to high cost, lack of transparency, the chances of fraud, the copy of the slew of documents that leads to mistakes and inaccuracy, and limited collaboration and connection. The blockchain solution allows the industry to remove all the obstacles and enjoy plenty of benefits.
With smart contracts, the automatic contracts can be set up and the terms like- shipment authorization, service payment, and legal ownership will execute automatically when the conditions agreed upon by the users are met. The automation has diminished the validation times of the transactions like- contract, signature, order, payment, and shipment by a great degree due to the real-time management of the transaction flow in the blockchain.
The products in the supply chain are secure at every Touchpoint because the tag attached to each product will keep the origin, storage place, authenticity, and all other records in a single ledger. Any suspicious activity of any of the parties, or inconsistency during the validation are quickly identified by the blockchain, and an alert is sent for the same, which makes the supply chain theft-proof.
As all the transactions made by the users such as how products are made, from where they are coming, and how they are managed is recorded, which are immutable in nature, this, in turn, improve the track-and-trace capabilities of the supply chain. Also, the documents shared among different parties back and forth create multiple versions of the same documents which lead to confusion. It can be eliminated with the blockchain application as all the information is stored on the single ledger from where the documents can be accessed by the parties involved in the transaction.
Loads of advantages have made 53% of the supply chain companies to leverage blockchain technology to turn the things upside down.
Banking and finance
The blockchain is one of the few fintechs that’s disrupting banking and financial services with an array of gains.
The adoption of blockchain in the bank leads to the faster transactions as the transactions will get settled in a matter of hours or minutes with quick verification process; no conflict due to duplicate data as the multiple parties will have the same copy of shared ledger that minimizes the need for accounts reconciliation by the banks; decrease fraud with shared ledger alongside two security keys where the parties will have access to the data, but the parts of the data can be made irrefutable and unchangeable; improve data quality with smart contracts that verify and enforce the data distributed across the system that meets the regulatory requirements; reduce the infrastructure cost with the elimination of intermediaries and counterparties.
The distributed ledger technology benefits financial services in terms of optimizing transaction settlements speed which is reduced to a couple of minutes or seconds; better capital optimization due to the zero involvement of the third-parties that leads to significant cost reduction; enhance contractual performance because of the automatic transaction settlement with smart contracts under the control of business rules; increase transparency along with enriched regulatory reporting and monitoring; diminished reconciliation and error handling.
Healthcare
The greatest invention of the decade is taking the healthcare industry by storm by providing a systematic way of managing the mountain of data generated from clinical records, medical research, billing information, patient history, and a lot more. See how?
The longitudinal patients’ records are kept at a single place, and the data produced at a later stage will also be uploaded to the same place, which provides a centralized repository of the patient’s health-related data. Under the master patient indices, there will be no duplication of patient’s data as entire data is hashed to a single ledger with multiple addresses and multiple keys.
The patient’s medical records remain confidential because the records kept on the blockchain are the unchangeable and only authorized person having consent from the patients can access the record. The complex claim processing is simplified with smart contract implementation where the claim is verified in an automated fashion when the terms stipulated in the contract are met. With the elimination of multiple validations and third-parties and central authority, there would be fewer errors or frauds.
Stock exchange
The collision of stock exchange trading and blockchain technology is transforming the way people trade and reap the rewards. The global exchanges like- NYSE, Deutsche Borse, and Tokyo Stock Exchange are embracing the technology to enhance interoperability, trust, and transparency in the trading.
The significant saving can be done on the transaction settlements due to the elimination of the role of intermediaries, regulatory processes, and operational trade clearance, which eats up a lot of amount as commissions. The automation and decentralization also lead to faster transactions, be it clearing or settlement. In the event of post-trading, the decentralized ledger is a panacea.
With the blockchain application, the security policies and standards are defined which converts the system into an automatic online surveillance system which constantly keeps an eye on every transaction, and in the case of suspicious activity, the transaction is immediately blocked and reported illegitimate to the concerned person. Thereby the DNA of transparency, trust, and fairness can be woven in the stock trading.
The reduced costs, minimum inefficiencies due to automation, diminished risks, and lower entry barriers increase the market base, investment, and liquidity. Ultimately, the technology enables the first movers to address the challenges and avail the full potential value.
Also Read: Blockchain Development taking the e-Services world by storm
Real estate
The real estate sector is moving forward with blockchain adoption where the processes and transactions are getting safer, faster, and transparent.
Removing the middlemen from the estate deals have resulted in savings as the parties are no longer required to pay extra fees or brokerage for closing the deals. Also, the cases of forgery and unethical practices will be lesser.
Buying the property using loan gets simplified with smart contracts as the loan application processing and amount sanctioning will take just a couple of days.
The investment in the real estate will be reinvented with the creation of a whole new market for liquidity, which means the investors can sell or buy the share of the property so that they don’t have to wait too long in order to let the property get matured and sell it after a long duration. Also, they can easily buy or sell properties to cross borders.
Furthermore, the initial coin offerings addition to the real estate wherein the digital coins will be used by the owners to draw in the investors and get funding for their startups. This use case of fintech is not widely accepted yet, but soon expected to become because of the significant boost in funding.
Legal
The data consistency, reliability and immutable nature with blockchain enable effortless regulatory compliance, management, and reporting of the businesses. The centralized storage of data that’s untouchable results in enhanced cybersecurity and data protection. Also, the unchangeable records of time-stamped signatures and finalized contracts become the single source of truth, which leaves less room for disputes.
With smart contract creation, a lot of scut work of the lawyers gets down as the self-executed contracts connect all the pieces together and auto-execute the things when the rules mentioned in the agreement are fulfilled.
Media and entertainment
The removal of the intermediaries between the content creators and the consumers and the several layers of content aggregation and distribution minimize the time required to bring the content in front of the consumers and realize revenue with more control over the work and monetization channels.
The blockchain is a great rescuer with the rise of pay-per-use consumption that allows the users (Showing reluctance to subscription system) to pay for the content they like to consume. Also, with micropayments, it becomes easy to track when and how the data is consumed.
The conflicts arise during the royalty distribution like not compensating the copyright holders at the defined rates, which can be wiped out with smart contracts where the channels are bound to provide the royalties to the holder as the content is used. It enables the accurate tracking of content usage, royalty payments, and keep the contract terms transparent among all the stakeholders.
The illegal peer-to-peer file sharing is a common practice which can be restricted with blockchain where the content owner can track the subscribed or purchased content by the users. When the users share the block chain-hosted content, it can be easily tracked by the creators and they can charge fees for the distribution. It inhibits the illegal sharing of the content, establishes consumer-to-consumer sales and generates an additional revenue stream for the content creators.
Besides, blockchain has become a new business model where the blockchain-based social networks allow the content creators and curator to monetize and earn digital currency according to the popularity of the posts. Steemit is one of the platforms that’s rewarding the users financially to encourage them for quality content creation.
The road ahead
The sky has no limit. The blockchain technology is also showing the same signs. The tech that underpins the cryptocurrency has first found its use cases in the financial industry and now, its use cases are realized in every industry vertical.
The distributed ledger in the rudimentary stage has brought the greatest disruption to the world with records’ immutability, middlemen elimination, and smart contract automation. Virtually, every industry is considering the platform to innovate, experiment, and smarten the people, processes, and operations. It’s becoming indispensable for everyone from individuals to large enterprises to grow, prosper, and get an edge over others.
No matter what niche the industry comes in, there is no escape from the blockchain technology that brings in integral advantages- a high degree of trust, transparency, security, control, and cost savings for your business. Get teamed up with the expert blockchain developers and deploy the strategy around cool sounding tech phrase to enjoy a great feat.
