What is The Blockchain?
The blockchain is a distributed ledger technology that underlies cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and platforms like Ethereum. It provides a way to record and transfer data that is transparent, safe, audible, and resistant to outages. This technology has the ability to make the organizations that use it transparent, democratic, decentralized, efficient, and secure. It will likely to disrupt many industries in the coming 5 to 10 years. These are some of the industries it’s already disrupting.
Banking and Payments
Some say that the blockchain will do to banking what the internet did to media. It can be used to give access to financial services to billions of people around the world, including those in third world countries who don’t have access to traditional banking. Bitcoin allows anyone to send money across borders almost instantly and with relatively low fees. Abra is one startup that is working on a bitcoin-based remittance service.
Many banks like Barclays are also working on adopting blockchain technology to make their business operations faster, more efficient and secure. Banks are also increasingly investing in blockchain startups and projects. IBM predicts that 15% of banks will be using the blockchain by the end of 2017.
Cyber Security
Although the blockchain ledger is public, the data is verified and encrypted using advanced cryptography. This way the data is less prone to being hacked or changed without authorization.
That said, the applications build on the blockchain are still young and there have been several hacks in recent months. This is something future applications will need to grow up to.
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Supply Chain Management
With blockchain technology, transactions can be documented in a permanent decentralized record, and monitored securely and transparently. This can greatly reduce time delays and human mistakes. It can also be used to monitor costs, labour, and even waste and emissions at every point of the supply chain. This has serious implications for understanding and controlling the real environmental impact of products. The distributed ledger can also be used to verify the authenticity or fair trade status of products by tracking them from their origin. Some blockchain companies working in this sector are Provenance, Fluent, SKUChain, and Blockverify.
The block chain technology will also affect many other industries. Be ready for this coming change and educate yourself!
http://futurethinkers.org/industries-blockchain-disrupt/ To view more industries that will affected.
