The Blockchain: A New Revolution

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(Edited)

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The blockchain

is a decentralised global ledger which was developed for the secure peer-to-peer exchange of the Bitcoin digital currency. This revolutionary technology however, has a wide range of alternative potential applications far beyond bitcoins and cryptocurrencies. To have an idea of how the tech works, you can read this article titled Blockchain Technology.

An interesting use of the technology is the developement of Smart Contracts which enable the coding of simple contracts that will self execute when specified conditions are met. Smart contracts can be programmed to perform special functions. For instance, a derivative could be paid out when a financial instrument meets certain benchmark, with the use of blockchain technology and Bitcoins enabling the payout to be automated.

The blockchain also has potential use in the sharing economy . The sharing economy is already a proven success evident from companies like AirBnB and Uber. Users however have to rely on an intermediary like Uber. By enabling secure peer-to-peer payments, the blockchain opens the door to direct interaction between parties, eliminating intermediaries resulting in a truly decentralized sharing economy. A prime example is OpenBazaar which uses the blockchain to create a peer-to-peer eBay (no middleman).

The blockchain's use in the the legal industry should not be overlooked. In legal disputes for example, lawyers are tasked with creating tons of paperwork. By digitizing the process of keeping track of the paper trail, it will reduce greatly the cost and potential for overlooked errors while allowing multiple legal parties to review and work on legal documents at once saving much time and increasing efficiency. Furthermore; by sharing legal activities on a distributed digitized ledger, the blockchain can be used to provide irrefutable digital proof that legal events occurred between two parties. Such events could be anything from a marriage to a divorce proceeding; a house sale to a land reclamation; or any other event involving digital proof.

A solid use case of the blockchain is in the protection of intellectual property. While digital information can be distributed widely thanks to the internet giving web users unlimited access to free content, copyright holders are losing control over their intellectual property and suffering financially as a consequence. The use of smart contracts developed on the blockchain can protect copyright information and automate the sale of creative works online, eliminating the risk of file piracy and illegal redistribution. An ideal use case would be in the music industry.

A very urgently needed and promising real-world application of the blockchain technology is its potential in making election results fully transparent and publicly accessible . The use of smart contracts will serve to aide in automating the electoral process leaving it free from human error and corruptive interactions. This can be of great significance in African countries where corruption is at an all time high, further hampering the people's power to enact any kind of positive and genuine change to the suffering they have endured from political corruption, enslavement and violence. The Blockchain truly is a mechanism to bring everyone to the highest degree of accountability.

Another application of the blockchain technology is its potential use in supply chain auditing . The blockchain's distributed ledger feature can easily allow customers to verify the claims companies make about their products. Transparency is accomplished via the blockchain-based timestamping of date and location of product creation and processing. This is already possible using the Ethereum blockchain where a Provenance pilot project ensures that fish sold in Sushi restaurants in Japan has been sustainably harvested by its suppliers in Indonesia. Cool right?

An important use of the blockchain technology is file storage. The decentralizing of file storage on the internet is clearly beneficial as the distributing of data throughout the network totally secures files from getting hacked or lost. Furthermore an internet made up of completely decentralized websites has the potential to speed up file transfer and streaming times. Such improvement is more than convenient and is nothing short of a necessary upgrade to the web’s currently overloaded content-delivery systems.

An exciting use of the blockchain technology is its forseeable use in the Prediction markets. Prediction markets are one of the most often cited alternative uses of the blockchain technology. These marketplaces allow people to buy and sell event contracts, which generate rewards (can be non-financial), for accurate predictions. They are considered one of the most accurate ways known of making forecasts on future events, and their goal is the generation of valuable collective wisdom, not money. A service like Augur is already developing this market on the blockchain and aims to enhance this dynamic by pushing markets across borders and removing all betting limits, roping in more people and more cash. Without such limits the person with the best information can make their bets, shaping a more accurate market.

Other alternative use cases of the blockchain technology include and are not limited to the Internet of Things (IoT), selling of the renewable energy generated by neighborhood microgrids, efficient data management, Identity management, increased efficiency of Anti-money laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) practices, permanent and transparent land title registration, added efficiency in share settlements like stock trading; and creation of incorruptable decentralised trading platforms.

The Blockchain remains a true revolutionary technology that will no doubt find other fascinating applications in the near future.

Sources☄:

●||https://www.wired.com/2017/03/forget-bitcoin-blockchain-reveal-whats-true-today-tomorrow/||✔

●||https://www.bitcoinwednesday.com/prediction-markets-and-the-blockchain/|| ✔

●||https://www.pwc.com/us/en/financial-services/fintech/bitcoin-blockchain-cryptocurrency.html/||✔

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blockchain bitcoins technology smartcontracts decentralisation
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Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by cryptonfused from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews/crimsonclad, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows and creating a social network. Please find us in the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.

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Sweet info and insight, I'm always looking out for explanations and terms relating to the blockchain here and there cause layman info is surprisingly scarce. Otherwise, I'd wait for some more fleshed out exchanges before I support AML and KYC.

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I'm glad it was helpful. Hope you also checked out the article I wrote 3 months ago explainingg how the tech works. Its not exactly layman terms but I tried my best to capture the idea of how it actually functions.

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Indeed, I did check out that article and it was very informative on just the right layman level for me. A good accompanying source of visualization with your article would be the one video 3Blue1Brown's youtube channel made on bitcoin and the blockchain. Anyways, nice articles and keep on keeping on.

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Thanks for that recommendation, I will check it out ;-).

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Good information, knowledge is power.

Almost every single cryptocurrency in the world is tanking right now.

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(Edited)

Yes, its normal. Crypto users are exchanging their alts gor Bitcoins in anticipation of the next hardfork which will shower them with new coins!

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(Edited)

Great job at explaining the many uses the blockchain has! Blockchain technology is revolutionary. Thanks for sharing, UPVOTED and RESTEEMED.

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Thanks for reading, upvoting and sharing. I'm delighted that you found it useful.

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Thanks for great post. I'm looking forward to the "tools" becoming available so I can use the chain(s) without out actually doing any programming.
eg I use an email client & organize my info etc, without having to program the internet comms. or fire up python etc

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(Edited)

Ohh cool, I'm looking forward to its availability as well. I'm not yet that good in programming , still learning and have not touched python.

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fyi python is fairly easy to learn language that is std in linux etc. & can be installed in windoz. All free
via python you can look at the blockchain data.
in theory you could build 'apps' to interrogate & retrieve data & make bots etc
but as I said I'd rather use a 'toolbox' eg just a "mail client"

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Thanks for the lil info. The more I can useful I recvd, the better it facilitates my learning process.

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Very good article. you are right... one is the extension of the other. resteemed

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Yup, isn't cool that my article ended with:

The Blockchain remains a true revolutionary technology that will no doubt find other fascinating applications in the near future, and your article is titled / touches on:

The future value in Blockchain technology

;-)

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