Explore how blockchain technology extends beyond cryptocurrency, revolutionizing finance, healthcare, gaming, supply chain, and more with real-world applications.
Imagine a world of absolute trust in which you can trust the person sitting to your left the person sitting to your right and even the person sitting halfway across the planet. Unfortunately, this is not that world in fact, our society functions largely because we do not trust one another. We regulate our food and our pharmaceuticals because we think we will be taken advantage of by those working in favor of their gain. We distrust strangers because we believe in terms of their worst possible motives. People cannot trust other people but perhaps people can trust a system this system that I’m referring to is the revolutionary technology known as the blockchain, and it carries the potential to place every digitalized piece of information ever recorded about you in your fingertips secured completely and displayed at your discretion.
We can start to understand the blockchain by first understanding, what makes it unique. Its manageability, its visibility, and its security.
So let’s first imagine, we have a filing cabinet but instead of paper files, this filing cabinet is made up of briefcases. There is a network of people each of whom has a copy of the filing cabinet, and all the briefcases whenever information is added everyone’s copy is updated to match to add information to a briefcase. The briefcase must first be opened and to open a briefcase we must have the key needed to unlock it. Briefcases just don’t go around unlocked waiting for someone to open them rather they are secured with a lock and key system. Our briefcases here are no exception of course additionally once information is added to a briefcase it cannot be taken out by anyone ever now.
Comparison of Traditional Finance vs. Blockchain-Based Finance
| Feature | Traditional Finance | Blockchain-Based Finance |
|---|---|---|
| Transaction Speed | Days to weeks | Minutes to seconds |
| Fees | High | Low |
| Transparency | Limited | Fully transparent |
| Intermediaries | Multiple banks | Peer-to-peer |
| Accessibility | Limited | Global & inclusive |
Blockchain eliminates the need for intermediaries, enabling secure and fast peer-to-peer transactions, thus redefining financial trust.
Let’s imagine, there is a restaurant, the restaurant is run by person A who wants to rent a building that the restaurant will go into from person B after some negotiation a document is drawn up citing the monthly payments. The document is reviewed once it is deemed valid it is added to a briefcase. Only person A and person B have the key to unlock everyone else just sees the briefcase even if person C comes along looking for that information. They will be unable to access it because they do not have the keys that person A and person B have. What I just described was how digital records get added to the blockchain. The briefcases represent blocks. On the blockchain, each block holds information that designated people can see. Additionally, each block holds information about the block in front of it. This means that by looking at a single block you will know the identity of the following one in our briefcase, example perhaps each briefcase has the serial number of the one next to it carved into its front. This system does not allow for the removal of any briefcases because removing one will disrupt the entire series. This quality of not being able to remove things is referred to as immutability so our filing cabinet links these briefcases in a chain of information. The blockchain does the same only in a digitalized world. Connectivity doesn’t just describe the relationship that the blocks have with one another. The users on the network are also connected to the community that the blockchain creates and functions as a decentralized or peer-to-peer network in a centralized network. There is a single entity that holds all of the power or information in the system in a decentralized network, such as the blockchain. However, this information is distributed over several different locations. Every user on the network has a copy of the blockchain that looks the same as it does on all the other computers, also called nodes on the network.
Whenever information is added, never taken away a new copy of the blockchain is passed to all of the nodes. This means that all nodes can see the presence of all information going back to our briefcase. For example, everyone can look into their filing cabinet and know that the briefcases are there but they cannot open them and access the documents inside unless they are directly involved and therefore have a key. If everyone can see everyone else’s briefcases it seems unlikely that this is the secure system that we’ve been looking for.
However, it is exactly because of this transparency that the blockchain is so secure which brings me to security. Since every node has its copy of the blockchain if someone tries to change any existing documents, they’re only changing their copy. One copy different from the other 50,000 1 million or however many nodes are on the network will alert algorithms built into the system and promptly be corrected to change the blockchain history. You would have to change a majority of the copies so that what you are trying to edit agrees with the majority of the system.
This means hacking into at least 51% of all of the computers on the network all at once in between the time it takes to add a new block. This is not feasible this part of the blockchain security that guarantees that immutability is only half of the equation, the other half is related to a type of code writing and code-breaking called cryptography.
This makes it so the briefcases are locked the nodes that see information know what comes from whom but they can’t understand it a series of passwords authorize interactions so that participants of the passing of information are the only ones that can see that information to everyone else. This appears as a series of seemingly arbitrary letters and numbers without the special passwords or keys needed to unlock the briefcases attempting to guess. These strings of characters would take lifetimes even with all of the computing power in the world. So the blockchain is an incredible tool and unsurprisingly it has many different applications.
One might recognize bitcoin is a volatile cryptocurrency that recently has been shaking the economy and making appearances and memes. The blockchain was first introduced as the data structure behind Bitcoin in 2009 by a programmer behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoins blockchain stores records of transactions that have occurred between users.
One thing that makes people want to use Bitcoin is the fact that it has no central authority like a bank or a corporation. For example, instead, bitcoin is decentralized because it implements the blockchain for any centralized power screams corruption. So Bitcoin is a welcome alternative to another financial application that can be found in the remittance industry. A remittance is any sum of money sent by a foreign worker to their families back home. Often these are not huge sums of money.
However, with the current system processing fees add massive expenses with the implementation of the blockchain these fees would be negligible. There are several startups
Companies that offer the service to convert one currency to another and use the blockchain in between. These companies have not caught on to the mainstream yet but they give us hope as to what a future with blockchain remittance would look like. Healthcare as an industry is constantly trying to improve patient access ability and privacy. The blockchain as it turns out offers both of these things. For one it could be used as a massive database for every patient’s records each time someone went to the doctor, they could grant their doctor permission to access every test result or condition ever recorded about them or just what’s relevant to the appointment seeing a cardiologist and then an orthopedic surgeon would be easy both for the patient and the specialist ease and appointments would make for less time spent on each patient. This means doctors could see more patients in a day help more people get better and save more lives all because of the blockchain.
Privacy is a very important part of healthcare so it makes sense that these sensitive documents should be stored on a secure system as possible and it’s not just for people either. The blockchain can be used to track medical technology and pharmaceuticals as they go through each point in the distribution process. Medicine could be tracked at each point via the blockchain, this would prevent pharmaceuticals that are not real from making their way into the supply chain. Additionally, companies would be able to provide verification documents to their customers without risking sharing sensitive corporate information.
This is a win-win for both the patients and the companies because the patients will be able to trust the companies and therefore will give them more business. So it seems the blockchain has many practical applications in industries we interact with in our everyday lives. However, there are more luxurious uses of the blockchain. A London-based company called Ever Ledger is working to digitalize all information about individual diamonds which includes color shape, weight measurements, and the origin all combined to form what they call a digital thumbprint.
The diamond industry is constantly working on dealing with counterfeit diamonds just as the healthcare industry is working on dealing with counterfeit pharmaceuticals. Implementing the blockchain would prevent these counterfeit diamonds or those that were mined in war zones from making their way into the supply chain. Again the industry implements the blockchain. Again the blockchain improves the industry so in a world of distrust what can the blockchain do well there is no limit to what it can do. We’ve understood how the blockchain functions its public functionality allows us to trust that whatever information we’re passing through it will go where we want it to go. Its visible nature allows for our information to be verified and cryptography allows for that information to be secured. A shift to where we would rely on the blockchain would completely disrupt the way we transfer information and not just how we interact with money.
Almost all industries have countless documents whether it be the remittance industry the healthcare industry or the diamond industry. Introducing these industries to the blockchain could allow for easy access it could allow for easy verification it could allow trust so when we can’t trust one, another we can trust the blockchain the world’s industries are ready to adopt the blockchain.
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