Blockchain offers huge potential in a large variety of markets and industries. Even outside of cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology makes decentralized consensus possible, which is a very useful property.
In this article, we’ll look at a few of the most significant market areas that will be disrupted by blockchain technology in the near future.
Healthcare: Secure Provider Data
The entire American healthcare system and industry is antiquated. Other countries might have better healthcare, but the way that healthcare data is processed and transferred is suboptimal all over the world. The systems used for accessing and transferring data do a poor job of maintaining security and privacy. Plus, centralization makes data loss likely.
Blockchain can help. By distributing and agreeing upon decentralized, distributed, encrypted data, different healthcare providers can access and share healthcare information with a much smaller chance of a data loss or corruption, not to mention privacy issues.
This isn’t purely theoretical, either. UnitedHealthcare, a major healthcare organization, launched an initiative using blockchain technology to revolutionize healthcare provider data storage and transfer.
Government: Foolproof Online Voting
Online voting systems are rife with fraud and technology challenges. Voting with a blockchain ledger means that votes can only be counted once. A central authority issues voter ID numbers and the blockchain makes sure that each ID number corresponds to at most one vote.
Banking: Easy, Fast Monetary Transactions
By far the largest and most well-tested industry utilizing blockchain is the banking industry. Bitcoin, the original cryptocurrency, uses the blockchain to send and receive money efficiently with no fees and no regulatory issues.
Many of the issues that plagued cryptocurrencies early on are largely being resolved. Environmental concerns, as a result of the high energy costs of proof-of-work algorithms, are made obsolete through new techniques like proof of consensus. The volatility of cryptocurrency is decreasing as it becomes more standardized and regulated.
Supply Chain Management: Guaranteed History
Because the blockchain ledger is irrevocable and distributed, each step in the supply chain can result in one transaction on the ledger. This means that the supply chain can be verified and secured in a way that was previously impossible, utilizing clever cryptography.
Companies in the food supply chain have already started using blockchain technology to efficiently and securely trace each batch back to its ingredients. This data is hugely useful in quality control and supply chain security.
Takeaways
For a number of years, blockchain was mostly just a buzzword. However, it’s proven its worth in a wide range of markets and industries. Because blockchain makes it possible for thousands of computers to simultaneously agree on a ledger, lots of industries and areas that need security and traceability benefit. From secure, distributed healthcare records to tracing the origins of food to voting online, blockchain offers lots of potential.
