Blockchain Technology Use Cases in 2021: Real-World Applications Beyond Crypto
When you think about applications of Blockchain Technology, the first thing you would remember is bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies that have risen in popularity and value like the original cryptocurrency — Bitcoin which has grown from $0.0008 per token to an all-time high of $64829 since its inception in 2009. But it is easy to forget that cryptocurrencies are not the only innovations made possible by blockchain technology.
Blockchain offers other essential features that have led to a wide variety of applications across various industries that have been able to utilize the power of the digital ledger to optimize their business processes and build new ones. How it works might seem complicated at first especially if you aren’t tech-savvy but it is actually quite simple.
At its core, blockchain is a digital ledger that stores data in an encrypted format in blocks to form a chain. By creating a virtual “chain” of data, the data that is stored in blocks cannot be manipulated. This eliminates the risk of any third party interference related to your transactions while safeguarding your data from outside threats such as hacks. These are some important use cases of blockchain technology in 2021:
- Supply Chain Management
A supply chain is a network that is established between a business and its suppliers. Its most popular modern implementation is in the e-commerce industry and blockchain aims to solve the problems faced in supply chain management through the digital transformation of assets. Products can be tagged and assigned with a unique identifier which will be stored on an immutable, transparent and secure blockchain. This helps in tracking important information about the product such as shelf life, time and location and consumers can easily verify the authenticity of the product as it can be tracked accurately across different stages in a supply chain. Thus with blockchain-enabled asset digitization in place, an organization can resolve any potential issues in the supply chain process and optimize it to work more efficiently.
- Cloud Storage
Decentralized cloud storage like StorX is open source leverages blockchain technology to split files into encrypted fragments and store them across individual storage nodes across the world by users who are incentivized to lease their unused disk space. It is a highly redundant and private system that allows its users to store the data that is important to them securely without any worries about third party access and at the fraction of the cost of centralized cloud storage providers.
- Payments and Money
Blockchain technology enables innovative ways of facilitating monetary transactions and managing money. Using Blockchain-enabled P2P transfer systems, the problems faced by traditional methods of transferring money through banks or credit cards such as geographical limitations, third party authentication and insecurity arising regarding the security of data can be solved. In a decentralized ledger system for peer-to-peer money transfers, the transactions happen in real-time so the receiver can instantly access the money once it is transferred.
- Healthcare
Blockchain will allow sensitive data regarding patients and their medications to be stored securely. This will help medical practitioners keep track of a patient’s medical history and it would also assist keep track of the drugs at every stage of the supply chain by tagging them with a unique identifier. It can be used to assure the authenticity of the drugs through this method.
- Asset Management
Integrating blockchain is enabling a more efficient management of tangible, intangible and complex assets. Any assets such as real estate that are often constricted by the size of the investment and liquidity can be tokenized, divided with minimum friction, cost and security concerns.
To sum it up
Thanks to blockchain, data is now being stored in a disclosed and secure manner just like it was supposed to be. Blockchain holds tremendous unrealized potential and the number of possible use-cases is endless but as time passes by, a growing number of smart and innovative companies will leverage blockchain to build a secure and more private Web 3.0.
