Blockchain is an emerging technology that offers huge potential for the future of many large industries. If you have heard of blockchain technology already, it is most likely in the context of cryptocurrencies. Blockchain, which acts as a kind of comprehensive digital ledger, is the technology which makes cryptocurrencies possible.
However, blockchain has the potential to underpin many exciting developments beyond cryptocurrencies. Anyone with an interest in technology would do well to pay attention to developments regarding blockchain. It is likely that many of the most significant advances in technology, even society at large, will either be built upon blockchain or will make use of it in some way.
Automated Management
Blockchain has the potential to combine with other existing technologies to produce entirely new and original opportunities. Bitcoin is a neat illustration of this aspect of blockchain. Its decentralized nature lends itself well to peer-to-peer (P2P) systems. By using P2P communications, users need only to connect with one another; they don’t need to connect to or through a central server.
Currently, human intervention is required to mine cryptocurrencies and generate new coins. In the future, this aspect of the currency might also become automated. This could prove to be a necessary step as the battle for mining supremacy begins to exact an environmental toll.
Payment Processing
Blockchain technology has the potential to underpin more advanced, faster, and secure payment systems in the future. These applications are separate from the cryptocurrencies themselves. The benefits of building a payment system on blockchain technology is that it makes it easy to verify authenticity and fight fraud. Have a look at this page about how OPEN Platform is making a system just like this.
Certify Supply Chains
The feature about blockchain technology that makes it so exciting from a technological perspective, is its reliability. While there is always room for human error, blockchain makes it possible, in principle if not in practice, to create a fully certifiable supply chain. Blockchain can be used to ‘stamp’ products and components at various points in their journey to consumers. These records are reliable. If they are altered, there will be a record of the alteration. It’s easy to alter physical paperwork, but the blockchain offers some natural protection against this.
Digital Assets
Cryptocurrencies are a great example of this implementation. The digital assets that we certify with blockchain can be more than currency. For example, things like birth certificates, drivers’ licenses, and other official documentation could soon be stored digitally and kept secure with blockchain technology underpinning it. Other financial instruments, such as bonds, stocks, and titles, can all be distributed and verified securely using blockchain.
As per the top blockchain developers, Blockchain is a technology that has the potential to completely transform individual industries, as well as our society at large. It is quite possible that within the next decade, many of the applications listed here will have been realized. The only question is how soon it will be before blockchain becomes part of our everyday vocabulary.