What began as the basis of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, blockchain technology essentially a virtual ledger capable of recording and verifying a high volume of digital transactions is now spreading across a wave of industries. Ultimately, the use cases for a transparent, verifiable register of transaction data are practically endless — especially since blockchain operates through a decentralized platform requiring no central supervision, making it resistant to fraud.
1. SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT - Several blockchain startups are innovating into this sector. Provenance, for one, is building a traceability system for materials and products, enabling businesses to engage consumers at the point of sale with information gathered collaboratively from suppliers all along the supply chain (and thus substantiate product claims with trustworthy, real-time data). With blockchain, as products change hands across a supply chain from manufacture to sale, the transactions can be documented in a permanent decentralized record reducing time delays, added costs, and human errors.
2. ENERGY MANAGEMENT - Transactive Grid uses Ethereum blockchain technology to enable customers to transact in “decentralized energy generation schemes,” effectively allowing people to generate, buy, and sell energy to their neighbours. In the US and UK, to transact in energy one must go through an established power holding company like Duke Energy or National Grid, or deal with a re-seller that buys from a big electricity company. Startups like Transactive Grid is a joint venture between LO3 Energy and Brooklyn-based Ethereum outfit Consensys. They’re rethinking the traditional energy-exchange process.
3. SPORT MANAGEMENT - At least one organization, The Jetcoin Institute, has promoted the idea of fans using cybercurrency. In this case, “Jetcoins” is to invest in their favourite athletes and receive small a portion of the athlete’s future earnings (as well as VIP events, seat upgrades, and so on). Investing in athletes has generally been the purview of sports management agencies and corporations, but blockchain could decentralize the process of funding athletes by democratizing fans’ ability to have a financial stake in the future of tomorrow’s sports stars.
4. GIFT CARDS AND LOYALTY PROGRAMS - With fewer middlemen needed to process the issuing of cards and sales transactions, the process of acquiring and using blockchain-reliant gift cards is more efficient and cost effective. Similarly, increased levels of fraud prevention enabled by the blockchain’s unique verification capability also save costs and help prohibit illegitimate users from obtaining stolen accounts.
5. GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC RECORDS - The management of public services is yet another area where blockchain can help lessen paper-based processes, minimize fraud, and increase accountability between authorities and those they serve. Some US states are taking it upon themselves to realize the benefits of blockchain: the Delaware Blockchain Initiative, launched in 2016, aims to create an appropriate legal infrastructure for distributed ledger shares, to increase efficiency and speed of incorporation services.
6. GUN TRACKING - Blockchain’s distributed ledger offers several opportunities around gun ownership and usage. If gun possession-related information were logged and connected through blockchain, it could provide a connected infrastructure for tracking where weapons came from in the event of unlawful use.
A startup called Blocksafe is focusing on creating a blockchain-based system for weapons tracking and accountability, which would enable gun owners to track their guns’ locations and stay informed as to whether lost weapons had been fired.
7. WILLS AND INHERITANCES - Wills are a highly specific kind of contract, providing an ideal use case for a blockchain smart-contracts solution. While the application of blockchain would not completely remove these challenges, it would make it easier to identify factual information, provide verifiable transaction data, and dismiss claims that are without merit. Social Security Office, to verify that a person did in fact pass.
8. RETAILS - Blockchain could decentralize that trust, attaching it more to the sellers on various marketplaces and platforms than to the sites themselves. Startups like OpenBazaar are developing decentralized blockchain utilities to connect buyers and sellers, without a middleman and the associated charges. Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton created a platform with Microsoft and blockchain startup ConsenSys to authenticate luxury goods through blockchain.
9. CHARITY - For those making charitable donations, blockchain provides the ability to precisely track where your donations are going, when they arrived, and whose hands they ended up in. Bitcoin-based charities like the BitGive Foundation use blockchain’s secure and transparent distributed ledger to give donors greater visibility into fund receipt and use.
10. LAW INFORCEMENT - In police investigations, maintaining the integrity of the chain of evidence is paramount, so a distributed, hard-to-falsify record kept via blockchain could provide an added layer of security to the evidence-handling process. Startups are innovating to bring these benefits to law enforcement. Elliptic, meanwhile, is developing a system to continually scan bitcoin registries, uncovers complex relationships within the transactions, and flag suspicious transactions/histories for potentially alerting law enforcement.
Reference : https://www.cbinsights.com/research/industries-disrupted-blockchain/
