Worldwide, the spending on blockchain is expected to increase to $15.9 billion by 2023, according to Statista.
In the past few years, blockchain technology has turned out to be a phenomenal technology. The novel attributes of blockchain technology are making business processes more efficient, more secure, and more transparent and are taking the industry toward a new ‘decentralized’ direction. Other blockchain technologies including cryptocurrencies, Dapps, digital wallets, among others are giving rise to new markets.
Applications of blockchain technology in the industry
Blockchain technology is proving itself helpful across all industries. From finance to supply chain, the technology is giving each industry a facelift and is creating demand for blockchain professionals in this worldwide business overhaul.
Making cross-border payment faster
Cross-border payments are costly due to the involvement of several third parties that make the payment processing slower and heavily taxed. The application of blockchain technology in cross-border payment will eliminate the need for third-parties and bring down the cost of processing payment.
Minimize ad fraud in digital advertising
In 2016, advertisers lost $7.2 billion on digital advertising. What this means is, clicks on ads were not human clicks, instead the clicks were originated by bots. Click fraud is increasing by 50% yearly. In a survey of 135 million ads on Internet Explorer, 50% of ad impressions were found to be non-human. Similarly, 20.5% of ad impressions on Chrome were found non-human. Blockchain can provide greater transparency into metadata of the audience by viewing an advertisement. The use of blockchain can prevent fraudulent clicks by tracing back to the origination and see whether the click was human or bot.
Blockchain for government agencies
Rigged EVMs (electronic voting machines) have been reported across various countries during the election season. Security issues have been reported several times, which beat the purpose of elections. India, USA, and other democratic countries around the world have reported several cases of rigged EVMs. The immutability attribute of blockchain can be used to secure votes. In 2018, Sierra Leone conducted the world’s first blockchain-based voting in the world. In the future, we might see increased adoption of blockchain-based ballots for elections.
Blockchain for cybersecurity
Data breaches are common and affect the industry worldwide. These breaches expose millions of personal sensitive data that affects lives. This is dangerous especially when it can be done by a simple phishing email. Blockchain inherently by its decentralized architecture and cryptography secures stored data.
Further, cloud storage is susceptible to hacking. Using blockchain this can be reduced to a large extent.
Blockchain for supply chain
The logistics industry involves a large number of vendors, which makes it highly complex. The food supply chain faces contamination issues, theft, and several other issues. Using the blockchain’s decentralized attribute, third-party vendors can be eliminated. Payments are streamlined using smart contracts, which further disintermediate vendors and make the process more seamless. Walmart in collaboration with IBM has created a blockchain-based network that facilitates tracking the origin of food and helps avoid food disasters for companies.
Blockchain for IoT
The wave of the Internet of things (IoT) is sweeping industries with its ingenious applications. Scaling IoT comes with its challenges. For instance, the storage of data created by devices in one place makes it highly vulnerable to hacking. A decentralized network that connects millions of devices is less prone to hacking and more secure. IBM and Samsung are working on ADEPT (a blockchain-based system) that will allow devices to communicate with each other, update their software, handle errors, and observe energy practice.
All in all, it’s only a matter of time before we see blockchain become a mainstream technology amid a slew of emerging technologies and watch demand for blockchain professionals grow in the process.
