The Future Scope of Blockchain Technology | Here's What You Need to Know

Blockchain technology gave us Bitcoin, the ultimate cryptocurrency. Soon, the technological innovators of the world concentrated their energies on this breakthrough and changed our understanding of currency and value transactions.

Today, there are tens of thousands of digital currencies and tokens that are challenging the legacy financial system with decentralization.

It will be a long-standing debate whether cryptocurrencies will replace fiat currencies or not, but will blockchain technology shape the future of our industries? The answer is a resounding yes.

The general population tends to think of blockchain as a technology that is exclusive to Bitcoin. This perception is far from the truth as this technology has far-reaching capabilities than just revolutionizing currency. Despite being a new and evolving technology, blockchain is already making waves in several business and industrial applications.

As a decentralized ledger of data divided into blocks and distributed across multiple nodes, blockchain enables ledgers to be independent of any intermediary verifying authority. Decentralization and cryptography make the data open to all yet secure and immutable. Such features make blockchain a promising implementation for the near future. Below are few industries that are driving innovation through blockchain and shaping the future of global economics;

1. Use in Digital Advertising

Digital advertisers and brands are facing several challenges in the form of bot traffic, payment inefficiencies, lack of data transparency, etc. With some industry players indulging in malpractices to drive profits, it has become ever so important for others to take corrective measures. Decentralized verification can address issues in payments and fake traffic. This makes the future of blockchain in digital advertising quite imminent.

2. Implementation in Finance

Security, and transparency are two of the underlying features of Blockchain, and the finance world was amongst the early adopters in this revolution. With blockchain implementation, sectors like trade finance witnessed reduced processing time, eliminated paperwork, and became cost-efficient while maintaining security and trust.

In finance, there is always a risk of manipulation of data and information. With the help of distributed ledgers, companies have been able to remove such intermediaries that hold central control over databases. Any change or modification in the ledger goes through multiple participants on the network and is verified through consensus.

3. Consolidation of Cloud Storage

Cloud storage and cybersecurity are two such areas that can significantly harness the potential of blockchain to enhance its value proposition. Centralized servers have always been prone to attacks and data theft, but blockchain implementation has the potential to considerably bring down such threats. Cloud storage and development are becoming a norm and with such scale, there is going to be a need for robust and secure systems.

4. Supply Chain Management

It may sound strange, as to how can blockchain possibly impact the supply chain sector but companies, such as Walmart have successfully used blockchain technology in the various cycles of their supply chain. This has helped them in authenticating the product quality and anticipate delivery schedules, hence impacting the overall value delivered to the consumer. Retail businesses have been able to track the origin, quality, and shelf-life of products with the help of blockchain implementation.

5. Revolutionizing The Travel Industry

One more surprising application of blockchain is in the travel industry. There are few players in the industry that have been experimenting with such applications to make travel more cost-effective. It is a well-known fact that travel and tourism are run by intermediaries and middlemen. This increases the price of any purchase in this domain by a significant number.

These companies are working on developing systems that can connect the seller and the buyer directly through a network. The outcomes of these experiments have been reassuring and tourism is quite likely to become a large-scale adopter of blockchain technology.

6. Implementation In Banking And Insurance

Like other aforementioned legacy businesses, blockchain technology has been making a notable presence in the banking world. Barclays was one of the earliest banks to deploy distributed ledger systems in its processes.

Many banks have been benefitting from the full-scale implementation of blockchain. In insurance, the emergence of smart contracts has led to many exciting possibilities. The insurance industry is heavy on documentation and paperwork, which always makes the processes slower. But with decentralized ledgers and smart contracts, the industry is looking towards a massive facelift.

7. Internet of Things

IoT networks and products collect a massive amount of data to enhance user experience. Blockchain networks can protect this data and create better automation within the services of the IoT network. As the technology evolves, its interaction with IoT networks will also evolve and more possibilities will surface.

Blockchain is making its space in almost all sorts of industries and there will be a huge demand for blockchain engineers and developers across all these markets. By 2024, Blockchain is expected to become a $20 billion market.

The current global situation has also created a space for remote blockchain jobs. Even government offices and public banks are adopting this technology at scale and trying to keep up with changing trends in the market. Security and transparency are crucial for all businesses processes and the adoption rate of blockchain networks is further solidifying the fact.

Conclusion

With so many experiments taking place through legacy as well as new-age businesses, stakeholders in all these industries are certainly looking forward to integrating blockchain into their core processes. The distributed ledger technology, especially Blockchain, is not only revolutionizing the currency world but also creating a more transparent financial system.

Even though the tech is yet to deliver concrete results in many cases, the enthusiasm amongst engineers, developers, and industry stakeholders is at an all-time high. The future of blockchain is not going to be limited to cryptocurrencies. Even though the crypto market will grow several folds, there will be new opportunities for blockchain developers in some very exciting fields.