[2018-08-10] Industries which the blockchain will disrupt

[ICOKite]

We have covered the basics of blockchain technology in our previous article. Now, it’s time to delve deep and understand which industries are poised for disruption with the use of this technology

1.Banking
A popular opinion is that the blockchain will do to banking what the internet did to media. Financial services will come within reach for billions of people around the world, including the ones in third world countries who largely depend on unofficial systems. Bitcoin allows anyone to send money across borders almost instantly
and with relatively low fees. 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.

2. Insurance
The global insurance market is based on trust management. The blockchain is a new way of managing trust and can be used to verify many types of data in insurance contracts, such as the insured person’s identity. This technology is very useful for any type of insurance that relies on real-world data, for example agriculture insurance.

3. Cloud Storage
Data on a centralized server is inherently vulnerable to hacking, data loss, or human error. Using blockchain technology allows cloud storage to be more secure and robust against attacks. Storj is one example of a cloud storage network using the technology.

4. Democracy
Probably one of the most important areas of society that the blockchain will disrupt is voting. Blockchain technology can be used for voter registration and identity verification, and electronic vote counting to ensure that only legitimate votes are counted, and no votes are changed or removed. Creating an immutable, publicly-viewable ledger of recorded votes would be a massive step toward making elections more fair and democratic.

5. Government Services[/b][/b]

Government systems are often slow, opaque, and prone to corruption.Implementing blockchain-based systems can significantly reduce bureaucracy and increase security, efficiency and transparency of government operations. For example, Dubai is aiming to put all of its government documents on the blockchain by 2020.

6. Public Benefits

The public benefits system is another sector that suffers from slowness and bureaucracy. Blockchain technology can help assess, verify and distribute welfare or unemployment benefits in a much more streamlined and secure way. GovCoin is a UK-based company that is helping the government to distribute public benefits using blockchain technology.

7. Healthcare

Another industry that relies on many legacy systems and is ripe for disruption is healthcare. One of the challenges hospitals face is the lack of a secure platform to store and share data, and they are often victims of hacking because of outdated infrastructure. Blockchain technology can allow hospitals to safely store data like medical records and share it with authorized professionals or patients. This can improve data security and can even help with accuracy and speed of diagnosis.

8. Energy Management

Energy management has been a highly centralized industry for a long time. Energy producers and users cannot buy it directly from each other and have to go through the public grid or a trusted private intermediary. TransactiveGrid is a startup using Ethereum that allows customers to buy and sell energy from each other in a peer-to-peer way.

9. Real Estate

Some of the issues in buying and selling real estate are bureaucracy, lack of transparency, fraud, and mistakes in public records. Using blockchain technology can speed up transactions by reducing the need for paper-based record keeping. It can also help with tracking, verifying ownership, ensuring accuracy of documents and transferring property deeds. Ubitquity is a blockchain-secured platform for real estate record-keeping that is an alternative for legacy paper based systems.

10. 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.

In conclusion, there are quite a few opportunities in Blockchain technology and its infinite potential for improving the quality of service, confidentiality and integrity of data at the same time.

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[d5000]

This is a poorly hidden advertisement, but the topic is actually interesting to discuss.

For me, a disruption by blockchain technology only occurs if 1) the blockchain enables traditionally centralized services to be managed in a decentralized way; and 2) the blockchain enables new services, which would not be possible (or of much lower quality) without its transparency - e.g. voting, which is only possible with some centralization, but maybe solves the problems of e-voting.

I agree with sections 1, 3 and 4; maybe also 10. In these cases an on-blockchain solution with smart contracts can provide more than "simply using cryptocurrencies":
- banking: I think here we all agree, most services banks offer can be replaced with on-blockchain solutions.
- cloud storage: There are already working solutions like Sia and Storj that are very interesting and could drive down the price for storage.
- democracy: There may be still challenges, but a consortium-blockchain-based voting system could increase transparency of traditional e-voting processes.

Most of the other areas, however, are not really suited to be "disrupted" by the blockchain technology. Cryptocurrencies can be used, and hashes of data entries can ensure database integrity, but I don't see real decentralized applications for these sectors.

Take insurance: Insurance is based on the concept that a group pays for individuals in defined cases (e.g. if a person is hit by a catastrophic event). More transparency than simply using cryptocurrencies. however, in this business would be counter-productive as people would learn how to "game" the business model, or learn that most are losing money.

Other example is government services. There are ways to ensure the integrity and completeness of documents without blockchains (using hashes of the content) that are much cheaper than running a dedicated blockchain (or bloat an existing blockchain) with that.