by Khushi S, Vikhyathe A R, Shreya S, Veerti S, Lishant Garg
Summary. In today’s day and age, words such as Bitcoin, crypto, blockchain are used more and more frequently. The world is adapting to this financial innovation which is soon going to be the new reality. This review takes a deep dive into the usage of blockchain beyond the confines of bitcoin. We try to answer the question “What is Blockchain beyond bitcoin?”.
Overview of Blockchain
Source: Investopedia
Financial innovation spans millennia, from ancient coins to today's virtual currencies. Blockchain, a decade-old breakthrough, promised to revolutionize finance by offering secure, decentralized transactions. This digital currency aims to challenge traditional fiat currencies, operating without central control. Its foundation? The revolutionary technology known as blockchain technology.
Let us understand blockchain. Imagine you have a magical notebook where you write down every purchase or sale you make. But this isn't just any ordinary notebook; it's enchanted! Once you write something in it, it becomes set in stone—no erasing or tearing out pages. Picture sharing this enchanted notebook with all your friends. Each time someone buys or sells something, they add it to their own copy of the notebook ,so they can all see what's being written. And because everyone has their own copy of this record, it's nearly impossible for anyone to cheat or deceive others. This enchanted notebook represents blockchain!
As time passed people realized that the usage of blockchain technology goes far beyond bitcoin or cryptocurrency. So let’s try and understand blockchain technology and its usage beyond the confines of cryptocurrency.
Beyond Traditional Borders
Blockchain's transformative potential spans industries, redefining processes and bolstering security. Asset management leverages blockchain to streamline trading, ensuring seamless transactions worldwide. Cross-border payments are expedited through blockchain, enabling swift remittances, often within 24 hours. Cryptocurrency epitomizes blockchain's global reach, facilitating frictionless transactions worldwide, transcending geographical barriers.
Blockchain tackles societal challenges such as unregistered births and deaths, providing a secure repository for verified certificates, accessible only to authorized parties. Online identity verification becomes centralized and efficient with blockchain, allowing users to verify once and securely share their identity across service providers. In the creative industry, blockchain combats copyright infringement and ensures equitable royalties distribution, maintaining transparent ledgers of artist rights and transactions, often utilizing digital currencies like Bitcoin.
Envisioning the Evolution of Blockchain Technology
Democracy's New Frontier
Source: Crypto News
Elections form the bedrock of any democracy. In India, a lack of faith in the election process is often the cause of decreased voter turnout. Now imagine simplifying this entire process by depending solely on one system that cannot be compromised in any way. Replacing conventional Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) for voting machines driven by blockchain technology is one feasible alternative.
How will this operate? Firstly voters would enter their biometric information into these devices, which would then produce a unique hash key for safe login and voting. Following verification of eligibility by official identification, voters would assign tokens to the candidates of their choice. These tokens would be added to the ledgers of the candidates after being subtracted from the voter's public ledger. The winner would be the contender with the most tokens. The essential transparency and confidentiality of blockchain technology guarantee that any alteration of data may be quickly detected via ledger tracing. Furthermore, the data would be protected by a private blockchain system, which would make it available to all parties involved while maintaining its integrity.
Revolutionizing Healthcare Systems
Source: Precedence Research
Healthcare is one such sector which requires an organized system that provides security to confidential data. Blockchain enhances healthcare organizations to provide adequate patient care and high-quality health facilities. By controlling the medicine supply chain, enabling the safe transmission of patient medical records, and easing the transfer of patient medical records, ledger technology aids in the discovery of genetic code by healthcare researchers.
Organ trafficking: Blockchain technology could be used most effectively to curb illegal organ trafficking. Every step in the process of organ donation i.e. from registration of request to organ transportation could be documented on the ledger. Smart contracts could automatically link the donor to the recipient on the basis of urgency and specific requirements. By utilizing blockchain technology it is possible to guarantee informed consent and avoid coercion. Furthermore, the blockchain can be used to safely store medical records and organ information, confirming the provenance and condition of the organ.
Resource Optimization
Source: Pixeplex
Energy management refers to the systematic monitoring of energy consumption to conserve energy. In the future blockchain is bound to play an instrumental role when it comes to the energy sector as a whole due to its confidentiality and transparency in transactions.
Blockchain can help in energy management through cost-cutting, increased clarity (Transparency) and decentralization. Blockchain helps enhance transparency and security in the energy sector. The future of blockchain in the energy sector may include applications such as grid management, peer-to-peer energy trading, commodity trading for the energy sector, data management and energy trading.
Cultivating Progress
Agriculture is one such field that will always stay relevant as it is a necessity for humans. In the future, blockchain can play a crucial role in taking the agriculture sector to new and greater heights. One such way is through tokenization.
Tokenization essentially refers to the process that converts the value of an asset into a token on blockchain which allows for fractional ownership, trading and transfer of these assets securely and transparently. Tokenization may help the agriculture sector in ways such as fractional ownership of assets such as farmland in a more transparent manner, thus enabling easier investment opportunities and improved liquidity.
Farmers can also leverage decentralized finance platforms to directly connect with investors and raise capital for agricultural activities. Agricultural produce can also be tokenized such that investors can trade these tokens for a profit.
Organized virtual world
Despite all of its advantages, social media has a basic problem: a lack of user control. We are dependent on centralized systems for our content, data, and even online identities. Blockchain technology provides a ground-breaking remedy: a decentralized social media environment that puts people back in control.
Data ownership is crucial to this transformation. Blockchain can provide consumers control over their data thanks to its transparent and safe ledger structure. Imagine a social media site where you control who may access your information and for what reasons—not the site. Security and privacy would both be significantly improved by this change.
Easier Monetization. Blockchain can also completely transform the monetization of content. It's difficult for artists these days to get paid fairly for their work. For each like, share, or view, artists can be directly compensated with tokens or money through blockchain-based micropayments. This promotes a more resilient creative economy in addition to rewarding high-quality material.
Revolutionizing Education
Source: Antier
The education sector is increasingly embracing a digital front and blockchain can help revolutionize the industry to a great extent. Education involves lots of data in the form of credits, certifications, diplomas etc. Blockchain can help secure and verify these credentials. This ultimately helps in improved learning record management and helps track student achievements.
Systematic Records: the entire learning journey of a student can be tracked as a blockchain-based system keeps track of credits, academic performances, and many other crucial educational aspects of a student. This security and transparency help combat educational fraud, making the verification process much easier. In a nutshell, blockchain will essentially help the educational sector by increasing transparency, trust and efficiency which ultimately will lead to enhanced learning and empowerment of educators.
Integration with emerging technologies
The concept of Blockchain technology is bound to evolve in the future, and its evolution may include integration with other evolving and new technologies such as the Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence.
IoT and AI are innovative technologies with promise to form more transformative applications and an integration with blockchain will stretch the limits of this evolution in the future. This integration will allow enhanced transparency and traceability due to Blockchain’s secure and immutable ledger system which ultimately leads to comprehensive tracking and verification of physical and digital assets. Blockchain can help secure the data that is collected due to its operational resilience and low risk of hacks.
This powerful trio is instrumental in revolutionising blockchain applications in various other sectors. These sectors include supply chain management, decentralised energy management, maintenance in manufacturing and also in building smart cities. As these technologies mature over time, we are at the forefront of a digital revolution which involves secure data exchange and a more interconnected world.
Concluding Notes
Blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize civilization by improving security, efficiency, and transparency. Blockchain has the potential to bring about a tremendous deal of good, from transforming supply networks and banking to giving people more control over their data. But in order to fully enjoy these advantages, we need to solve problems like scalability constraints, security threats, and unclear regulations. Blockchain is the new reality of the financial sector which if used efficiently has the power to create a new world.
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