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Walmart now teams up with Big Pharma to track drugs and at the same time french retailing company Carrefour uses blockchain to track goods what ppl buy. Is it really easier to implement blockchain into company's structure to reduce the cost and work or is it just fairy tale and total hype? What do u think? Why almost every country says about blockchain implementation but at the same time issues the number of regulations for crypto using?

This move by Walmart is an affirmation of the game-changing capacity of the blockchain to influence and transform an industry. This news must be referring to it joining MediLedger  (https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2019/06/03/walmart-big-pharma-drugs-blockchain-ethereum/)which aims to “open and decentralized network for the pharmaceutical supply chain,” designed to address the tightening regulations that govern the supply chains of drugs and medications. That said, according to the MediLedger website, network nodes are run and operated by industry participants, so it doesn’t sound entirely open and decentralized."

Whether this can just be another hype or promotional gimmick by Walmart and is not really up to anything, we can see the answer to that question maybe after Walmart can see results with the use of the MediLedger platform. Right now, it is too early to conclude anything. Let's wait and see what will happen. In case the experience of Walmart can be positive and encouraging, am sure other firms will be thinking of joining the blockchain bandwagon too.

I think the blockchain system for drug registration will be a simple and effective solution. Track the drug directly from the manufacturer and always know when and where the batch came from. It will probably also be possible to check who sells especially strong drugs in order to prevent their possible distribution by illegal means.

I think applying blockchain to tracking data is a real and probable thing. Essentially, the initial blockchain created is for that purpose. Deploying blockchain for manufactured products will take a lot of human resources at the initial stage (creating blockchain, applying hash to each product, ...). However, once that first step has been made, the remaining steps are quite easy and effective as they are all controlled by the blockchain, without spending too much human resources.
As for the governments exhorting to develop blockchain but limiting crypto is also their reason. Because if crypto grows too strong, decentralization becomes the crux of the economy, centralized systems like banks, government, ... will collapse. And that's exactly what governments don't want.

It's good to know that Blockchain would be a help to track and trace illegal drug transactions but I don't think it would be easy. We all know that it will be easy for most users to keep their transactions anonymous but if drug dealers aren't that smart, it will be easy for them to track them.

Them using blockchain to track drugs or any thing  that is registered in their blockchain is a smart move,they are using what blockchain is made to be.Yes its feasible and has a probability of being approved because this move from walmart is very beneficial for them and for many others that will adpot the blockchain technology in the future.

I think this is just one of examples how blockchain could be implemented in almost any kind of industry. From health, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, food or anything else. But people are still not educated enough about wide range of blockchain possibilities and how to benefit the most out of it and how to implement it in business. But I think in few years time this will change.

I agree with you. Most people are unaware of Bitcoin's capability to reach every industry and how it could even eliminate the crime rate. I just wish that this test would be successful because drugs is one of the biggest problem of every country.

Decentralized bases may benefit the pharmaceutical company. It's great to watch such a retail giant as Walmart also supports the blockchain. I hope that other companies will take note and this will help to make the system universal for all

If such a system would not only apply to pharmacists, but also cover the customer base, a system could be created where the patient can get information, which pharmacy can provide the right drugs, and other important information.

Wow. What a waste of time. There are crimes where people get seriously hurt and they wasting their time on this. Tracking every single package? How would they know what is in the package?
This sounds like paranoia and really isn't going to help anything. The war on drugs just fueled it. Besides serious trafficers would use their own carriers. Its pretty messed up this is what they waste their time on instead of customer service. This is in USA again so I am not too surprised. For being the land of the free you sure not very free with all this bs survivance and tracking. I can't scratch my arse without someone knowing about it.

You might think this is going to do good but it won't people will take drugs no matter what law is in place. Countries with less severe drug laws have less drug problems. It's only clueless people who think stuff like this will help.

If the companies do use the blockchain technology it doesn't mean they make use of cryptocurrency and hence don't need 'regulations for using cryptos'. In fact, in 99% of the cases, the company doesn't need anything special to be able to implement the blockchain tech.
I wouldn't say it's easy to implement, it surely takes a lot of time between the research and the product, not talking about how it can be difficult to hire competent people. What matters is the ROI the company gets in the long term.

Out of curiosity, are you sure it's for tracking drugs and not medication? What is this pharma company?
Because I don't get how they will be able to track drugs unless they partner with drug dealers?

A single ecosystem is a good solution. But one problem remains - lack of trained people who understand how it all works. It seems to me that if you do not make training mandatory, but it would be better for everyone to provide pharmacists and patients with educational materials explaining the principles of the blockchain. Taklimakan has general courses on blockchain and cryptocurrency. Do not take a lot of time, but help to understand the essence of the problem.

The fact is that cryptocurrency and blockchain technology are not quite interrelated terms.Blockchain can be used without the use of cryptocurrency.And this technology is really very necessary for any state.

Blockchain and crypto are two different things. Blockchain is a technology whose actual potential is still unknown to the mankind. Research and development is still ongoing and probably few years down the line we will see more applications of blockchain in major corporates. What we are seeing now is not even a percent of what it can achieve!

Now crypto is one of the use cases of blockchain. The way cryptos have some good elements in it, similarly there are few cons as well! While the capability of anonymous transaction is a good thing for many, but with raising intolerance and terrorism worldwide, is not a good thing for the governments.

Even, I too support the regulations around crypto because it makes us safer and we will also see increased rate of adoption if a proper regulatory framework is provided by the governments. So don't mix these two things!

blockchains are simply distributed relational databases
cryptos are simply tokens/currency using proof of authority using encryption

with blockchains the data inside the block can be tokens/currency, or any other data.(produce logs, identity info, etc)

lets take banks. traditionally a town bank manages say 10k customers day to day and has to connect to a national database.
this national database stores everyones info and needs servers, IT staff, security guards, power backup, data backup, auditors, accountants, etc

using blockchain though each town bank can just be a node and because the network self audits they can sack much of the auditor,accountant, it support staff. they dont need large server farms. just a node per town and maybe a backup or 2 thus not needing large skyscaper building leases, no need for high end server cooling systems

this alone costs down on internal costs as a node can just be a simple PC which most town banks have anyway. so before even thinking of the usage of the data, many industries see the cost saving of distributed databases rather than server farms

as for the usage of data. if more than one location needs access to the same data as another location. then thats another advantage. many locations can get involved without having to rely on a central store.

they dont even need to all store all the same data. blockchains can be organised into groups/shards/designated blocks. for instance for every 8 blocks block 1 could be northern region. block 2 can be north east region, 3 east, 4se,5s,6sw,7w,8nw
or blockchains can be sharded/sidechains

and the best thing about blockchains is that to validate a whole chain has not been tampered with, you dont need to always revalidate reaudit every bit of data in history regularly. you just check the latest hash compares to other locations and if they have the same result then you instantly know others also came to the same conclusion/audit result and that verifies you made no mistakes. you then use that hash to know anything before it is as honest and true as you expect and thus dont have to revalidate it again. and just do recent validations on just new data added ontop and ensure the old milestoned hash still exists


the most important features of blockchains are
1. data needed by multiple locations
2. data needed to be efficiently audited/validated

Blockchain could really help them and it is nice to know that they are seeing it now.
But to be honest I think soon enough they would also accept crypto just like blockchain.
But we couldn't really say it for sure because some see's it as a currency to hide the criminals or be used for illegal activities.

I think Blockchain technology is really helping this companies with storing and tracking different informations otherwise I don't see any reason why they would create hype for nothing. Blockchain is the future because it is way cheaper to implement and use,it's faster and it is also safer since it is much tougher to hack it. Walmart is not the only company that starting using Blockchain, just by taking s quick search on Google you can see that other big companies like Samsung or Microsoft and mostly a lot of banks have implemented Blockchain into their services.

I don't think that it's a 'true blockchain' in nature but rather a database shared in between companies to track everything and exchange information whenever needed. At most, this blockchain would only be limited to the partners and associates of the said company for viewing and adding information and nothing else. Using the word blockchain is just another marketing strategy for the public to think that these guys are really moving forward with innovation, while in reality it's just the old system branded with a new name.

From this news it looks as if blockchain is a hit within the corporate retail market with outfits like walmart and this other french retailer which I would imagine has a wider customer base in europe as well.
Maybe now the financial institutions will recognize what an asset using blockchain technology can be for them and hop on board to fuel the next bull run up to $100k bitcoin perhaps. :-\

It is not hype, there are many useful things that can be done through blockchain and many companies are developing things to monitor every product they manufacture to counter counterfeit goods and it will reduce cost and it will be easy to monitor the products in the market.

Most companies understand and recognize the usefulness of blockchain but there's also a big push to disassociate it from bitcoin. Banks and governments are trying to weaken bitcoin and corporations are kissing their asses thinking that if they go along and say they don't want bitcoin but blockchain the banks and governments will make life easier for them.

For a minute I thought that said "Taking drugs or other stuff with the help of blockchain" :)

in the UK and a few other places. for situations like you explained.
the buzzword they are starting to use is DLT distributed ledger technology

I don't think you fully understand the OP, this isn't meant to track illegal drugs.
This is to prevent legal drugs to make it into the illegal circuit, by making every part of the production and distribution cycle traceable.

The funny part is that this is nothing in comparison with the possibilities this technology has. However, it is definitely a big move and if Wallmart see that they like how it works they will definitely expand the implementation towards other areas and when those big retailers start using it for almost or all operations, others will follow for sure.

That will be a huge step towards the future and will open a lot of minds about the true possibilities and how the people preaching for it were not really that crazy.

I don't know if this can really reduced that cost. Remember Walmart, I assumed used centralize databases so they could have literally hundreds if not thousands of servers that they maintained. So I doubt that they can easily migrated everything in blockchain in short span. It will took them at least a year to slowly migrated to blockchain technology if that is the direction they want to go. And migrating also cost thousands of dollars, you need to hire competent personnel, (database administrations, operations, infrastructure), so it's not that easy.

So don't say it's easy to move everything is blockchain technology because in reality, it isn't.

You have to understand that crypto-currencies and blockchain usage in data validation is completely different things.
Crypto currencies are financial assets but block-chian is technology which can be used in variety of ways and does not need regulation if it is not meant for transferring money.

Crypto and blockchain is different thing you know, most of the corporation think highly of blockchain since it could be used for their system and make it a lot more efficient meanwhile crypto is opposed by many of the governments and corporations. The blockchain itself also could be implemented for various things and tracking drugs is not a wishful thinking, you see why bitcoin blockchain transaction could be traced to certain extent? I guess that's what they are going to implement.

The Walmart move on tracking will be a good move to track any drug dealing with blockchain technology which will be a good move to develop remove crypto from blacklist by government which saying the blockchain technology is be used for child trafficking and drug deal .