For too many people, their understanding of blockchain begins and ends with cryptocurrency. It’s ‘online money’ or ‘digital currency’ that is seen as the preserve of only coders and tech geeks.
More Than Just Coins
That definition is way too limiting, and although cryptocurrency does run on blockchain, that’s only a fraction of the protocol’s capabilities. As we’ve demonstrated previously, blockchain technology also offers advances in security, in identity verification, and in the way publishers and consumers can exchange their data on consensual and transparent terms.
Countries like Estonia are using blockchain as the fundamental tool for underwriting the functions of government at national and local levels. The technology allows for fair and regulated elections, and can even handle the tricky legal and financial processes of citizenship and taxation.
In healthcare, the possibilities for portable but secure medical records is proving to be a game-changer in the way that many health organisations are run.
Other Financial Possibilities
Even the companies you’d expect to be most concerned with currency have seen the wider potential in blockchain. MasterCard, as a global financial institution, is developing blockchain protocol to help verify and cut out fake identities. The financial implications are obvious, but it shows that already, the money makers are beginning to look at blockchain applications far beyond just cryptocurrency.
Business On A Global Scale
When it comes to moving things around the world, there are few companies who can compete with the scale and experience of Danish shipping firm Maersk. In an ideal world, they’d be able to track every component of every shipment from origin point to destination, as well as any onward journeys each part or piece may take in its lifetime.
Under the current ways of logging and tracking data, the load of information is too difficult to wrangle. Both the volume of data involved — it would be expensive to store in one place — and the fact that most shipping involves multiple privately-owned companies interacting at different points, pose problems. Multiple companies means multiple proprietorial systems and databases.
Blockchain solves both of these issues. The resources of the distributed ledger mean that no single company or server has to carry the load. The open and transparent nature of the blockchain means it can be updated by private companies or government customs officials alike, and the information is accessible to all of them at any point in the shipped item’s life.
Content Creation Transformed
A growing number of companies are starting to feel like their digital advertising spend is throwing good money after bad. Often the information they get about the patterns and actions of customers turns out to be unreliable data generated by bots. Customers are less incentivised by rewards they can only use in one place, and they get frustrated when their preferences in one location can’t be carried over to another.
MEDIA Protocol is changing that. Using smart URLs and smart contracts, the protocol allows content publishers and customers to interact in a completely new way. By agreeing to share their behaviours and other information with content creators, customers are giving a valuable and verifiable set of data for the creators to build on. It also allows for personalisation of content going forward, but most importantly, rewards in the form of MEDIA tokens, which can be used all across the network (to get access to paywalled content elsewhere, for example).
Cut out the middleman. Be confident the data you’re giving and receiving is actually worth something. Gain rewards for everyday online activity that you’d be doing anyway. Doesn’t that sound much better than the current model of blind ad spends for (partial, selective and often inaccurate) secondhand data?
In Summary
Cryptocurrency is part of what blockchain is capable of, but barely the tip of the iceberg. Even in the examples listed above, those industries are just beginning to explore what they can do with blockchain, and the use cases will only continue to grow as it’s more widely understood and adopted.
Decentralised, transparent, secure. The possibilities for blockchain may well be endless.