Cryptographic currencies are widely regarded as trading assets, but together with the blockchain, they provide groundbreaking uses in areas such as personal finance, housing and energy. Here are five examples of innovation.
Cryptographic currencies help low-cost transfers
For many customers, the cost of inter-bank transfers is often controlled by many factors, including high transaction costs, uncompetitive exchange rates, and geographic restrictions. According to a recent World Bank study, the average cost of a single bank transaction for a private client may be as high as 5.5% of the transfer amount. International remittances may also take up to 5 business days. Although the nature of the transfer has not changed, companies such as Ripple are using digital tokens to speed up transfers while reducing costs. Ripple sells a cryptocurrency called XRP. California-based Ripple has created a $300 million fund that will pay for companies that use XRP to cross-border transfers.
The company recently announced another project called Xspring, which will pay developers software coding fees, with a focus on XRP. Earlier this year, several leading transfer companies, including Western Union and MoneyGram, announced that they were studying pilot projects using XRP. The cryptocurrency also provides opportunities for traditional transfer companies to diversify their income. Earlier this summer, the UK-based TransferGo began offering cryptocurrency transactions to customers in the form of buying and selling five major cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin. TransferGo was founded in 2012 and currently has more than 600,000 registered users. The company works with 30 banks.
Blockchain technology to combat electoral fraud
Cryptographic currencies such as Bitcoin and Litecoin may have changed our perception of money, but their impact has had far-reaching implications in other less obvious areas, such as non-profit organizations that seek to protect and increase the participation of voters in democratic countries. An organization called "Democracy Earth" formed a new company called Sovereign, which uses blockchain technology to give users more flexibility in how to vote. This practice is described as a “mobile democracy” that allows voters to express their opinions on any particular issue and then entrust their vote to those they think are more appropriate to make decisions on their behalf. In turn, other participants can vote on the entire voting chain. Sovereign uses an existing blockchain platform (such as Ethereum) and generates a limited number of tokens (which it calls "voting"). These votes are then assigned to registered users who can vote as part of an organization in a network of parties or companies that operate as cooperatives.
Voters use an app to view the votes in their account and discuss issues with each other before deciding to vote. A ballot only needs to be clicked, or you can assign more votes to a question. One possible disadvantage of this technique is that all transactions on the blockchain can be viewed by other users. However, Sovereign said that some blockchain technology providers have found ways to ensure anonymity. Sovereign will be widely available to the public by the end of 2018 and will be successful in an informal digital referendum in Colombia last year.
Blockchain helps green energy trading
A major advantage of decentralized database technology is demonstrated in Brooklyn, New York. There, in a promising project, dozens of owners collaborated to install solar panels as part of an independent network. The Brooklyn microgrid is run by technology startup LO3 Energy, which enables residents and businesses to achieve energy self-sufficiency while allowing them to enter a trading platform and sell excess electricity to other buyers in the group. Brooklyn Microgrid has about 50 participants, but its initial size is small and part of a larger idea to create a nationwide peer-to-peer energy trading system using blockchain technology.
Organizers hope that the grid will allow users to bypass utility companies, which will benefit the environment and create a secure supply chain that will operate even in extreme conditions such as the hurricane season. Around the world, companies like LO3 Energy are building new blockchain networks to maximize energy systems and work with existing grids, or to avoid demand in remote and emerging economies. Last year in Australia, Power Ledger announced the launch of a blockchain-powered electricity trading market for a residential community in Perth. In Bangladesh, an estimated 65 million people are currently unable to use electricity, and ME SOLshare has been using a rooftop solar system to build a trading network. Consumers can sell their excess power, which is purchased by homes and businesses on mobile phones in small quantities.
Blockchain technology helps
one of the most socially conscious uses of homeless blockchain technology, as seen in how the city tries to ease the services of the homeless population. Utilizing $5 million in the Mayor Challenge Program grant, Austin, Texas is currently piloting a new blockchain platform to consolidate and verify the identity and other important records of each homeless. Austin currently hosts about 2,000 homeless people, and thousands more have unreliable housing at different stages. Another area in which
food safety
blockchain technology plays a key role is to limit food waste. A recent report by the Boston Consulting Group warned that the response to food waste is often inadequate, and by 2030, the amount of food thrown or lost each year will increase by a third to 2.1 billion tons. According to estimates by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, approximately 815 million people suffered from chronic malnutrition in 2016. To alleviate this problem, IBM and retailers, wholesalers and suppliers have launched a blockchain-based food traceability platform. The IBM Food Trust platform helps companies track the path of food products across the supply chain and across borders. It verifies that the product has been digitally certified as organic or fair trade and gives growers the ability to upload and manage their product information.
This cloud platform is open to anyone in the food supply chain and is used by French retail giant Carrefour. Carrefour operates 12,000 stores in 33 countries. Other large adopters include multinational companies such as Nestle, Tyson Foods and Unilever. The platform may be of particular value to the food industry in identifying and locating products that may be recalled, a process that is often costly and time consuming. Pricing for the platform starts at $100 per month and is tiered for small and medium-sized businesses.