A few years ago, had someone brought up the idea of blockchain and explained how quickly it would begin to be incorporated in everyday aspects of our lives many people wouldn’t have believed it could be possible. However, following the swift rise of cryptocurrencies, beginning with Bitcoin, developers realized the huge potential in Dapps (decentralized applications), which have a wide range of potential uses beyond virtual currencies.
Of course, as with many forms of technology, businesses have been relatively slow to adopt blockchain technology, banking institutions and other parts of the financial industry have first been unsure of how to categorize cryptocurrencies and cautious to adopt them. But, blockchain, which has received perhaps less publicity than Bitcoin is now gaining ground as the full scope of possible uses become apparent and many large companies have begun to obtain patents.
For example, IBM and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) formed a partnership to create a scalable health data exchange built on blockchain. This is being done to deal with the fact that health data is often not transparent and to address patient privacy concerns.
Tied into this is how blockchain can be used in the pharmaceutical supply chain, with each batch of medication having individual identifiers and therefore can easily be tracked from creation to delivery.
Another industry that can benefit from the adoption of blockchain is journalism, with social media platforms being able to use blockchain to verify whether a news story is accurate or being spread by a network of bots. This would be invaluable and give news organizations increased credibility as they can verify their sources are accurate and the stories they report are factual.
Virtual goods and augmented reality can also make the most of blockchain, both for brands and their consumers, as in-game currencies and goods can be created, bought, sold and traded while also easily confirming they are genuine and unique, which makes them more valuable.
Blockchain is already a part of our lives, but it’s not always recognized as such, but with so many businesses starting to at least research how best to use this technology, it’s likely that the shift toward greater user will have little effect on how people go about their days. But, underneath that will be increased efficiency and security, thus leading to even more innovation as the limits of blockchain’s usefulness have not yet been found.