Bitcoins are the latest kind of investment that everybody is readily to put in their money too. However, there are entrepreneurs who are exploring the benefits of the technology behind it; blockchain. A lot of blockchain technology companies use this revolutionizing technology to create virtual currencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum etc. Blockchain can be considered as a public ledger that works in an automated manner to record and verify huge amounts of electronic or digital transactions, without reference to their location. Since the inception of Blockchain, we have been associating this technology to financial terms only without really paying attention to the myriad benefits of these in varied domains of other industries. Due to the use of decentralized servers, blockchain platforms are utterly secure and transparent making them fraud resistant. In this blog, we will understand some smashing uses of Blockchain in sectors other than Finance and Banking.
Electricity Sharing
One would have never thought about the application of Blockchain in energy resource management. Electricity sharing, might sound a bit of a rocket science here but is merely simple. After dividing the neighborhood into two halves; one with the sunny side and one without it, solar panels will be set up on the sunny side and then energy generated from it will be distributed among all at an agreed price. The process can result in generation of excessive electricity which can be distributed to the nearby local markets, again at the price agreed by everybody.
Patents
Content has been the king since ages and with more and more people creating plenty of content each day, ownership has becomes one of the most challenging aspect in content creation and distribution. With blockchain, artists and other entertainment entrepreneurs will be able to have control on the ownership rights using smart contracts. Smart Contracts will be able to execute licensing transactions on their own leading to simplified revenue processes.
Photographers can finally upload their photos on any blog they want after registering on blockchain platforms such as KodakONE. The platforms will help the photographers to track the usage of their photos without their permission. Ergo, they will make money with the help of automated licensing. Startups like BigchainDB are working on products that could verify ownership of music records and other artist works.
Weapon Tracking
Increased number of mass shootings made it necessary for security authorities to discover ways to control the gun ownership rights and usage. Apparently, Blockchain is just in time to help us deal with society’s grave problems such as weapon tracking.
The blockchain solution will be used to do all the mandatory background checks of the gun owner. Not to mention, there will be measures to ensure that privacy of individuals is not compromised. To maintain all the data, there will be a decentralized Blockchain ledger that will only be in the hands of single entity, perhaps the government or a more powerful organization that would not use the information to find out the vulnerable targets. In the recent future, we might come across Blockchain solutions that will have restriction over the gun purchase for those who suffer from some kind of mental illness and the unlawful gun purchases too.
Wills
Fake wills is a common concern that arises in a family at some time or the other. Till now, there were limited ways to verify the genuineness of the will. Not anymore. With the use of Smart Contracts that are built on Blockchain, lawyers will be able to understand the legal interpretation of the will after analysis of the entire past transactional data of the deceased. As a matter of fact, Blockchain Technologies Corp. is already building a blockchain solution to verify the person’s history by accessing a Death Master File which is managed by the U.S Social Security Office. Without compromising the integrity of the will, the system will help in distributing the assets of the dead to beneficiaries without the need of any court disputes.
Forecasting
Intelligent business organizations always rely on predictive research analysis to make better and informed business decision. Since, there will be a decentralized system, the chances of mistakes are negligible, thus making the transaction records more accurate than ever. In fact, there are solutions that are already setting up a firm hold in the prediction market like Augur. The beta solution of Augur lets the users predict events and place bets. The company plans on making this Ethereum blockchain platform decentralized which can be used to place bets on sports and stocks only.
Transportation
Blockchain technology has endless possible uses in transportation. From renting out parking space to renting a car to ride hailing; blockchain is expected to serve this sector really well. Lack of parking space is common problem that every person faces, especially when vacationing. Blockchain Parking solution can help individuals secure parking spots beforehand. The driverless cars have already arrived in our world but it does not have any perks of free parking. With the help of Car Wallets, driverless cars will be able to pay parking fees wherever and whenever required. In addition to this, blockchain will also help in simplifying the current complicated process rental cars. A seamless blockchain rental car solution will help the leasing companies to enable users to manage their information to the latest. As a result, there will be lesser processing time with optimized costings.
Blockchain extends its transportation benefits to ride hailing services as well. Soon, the passengers will be able to pay the fares through digital currency without really using any cash or cards. Peer to Peer ridesharing is another disrupting concept that focuses on removing the middleman from the ride hailing business. This works in the form of digital tokens that can be used to make transactions to purchase cash or avail other services. Arcade City has already been using it in major U.S cities for more than a year.
Healthcare
Healthcare records are an utterly sensitive form of information that require strict administration. With Blockchain, the users will have a direct control over their medical records and through secure ways, they would be able to share it with their doctors. This will also help in eradicating the challenges of duplicate and manipulated records. Thus, there will be smooth data sharing among healthcare providers which will eventually lead to better treatments, effective medications and a cost effective healthcare system.
Drug Traceability is another benefit of implementing blockchain to healthcare. This will help in managing contents of drugs supplied by pharmaceutical companies using private blockchains. Overall data transparency prevents any misuse of drugs or regulate the purchase of the same.
Rent Out Your Hard Drive
Yes, you can definitely rent out your hard drive. The cloud storage is not affordable for everyone. Moreover, the information resting on the cloud is not really private or secure for that matter. An alternate solution to this is to be a part of a community that shares unused hard drive space with other users to store data in a secure manner. The interesting part is that you get to make a few bucks too. The storage nodes are safe and your data is not replicated over various places for back ups like in the case of cloud storage. Storj.io offers this amazingly unique service based upon Blockchain.
Buy Pizza and Beer
In the history of Blockchain, one would never forget that incident when Hanyecz bought two pizzas with 10,000 Bitcoins. This makes us hopeful that we will never run out of pizzas and beer as long as we have the cryptocurrency in our digital pockets.
I hope that you enjoy using Blockchain technology for all the mentioned activities. Till then, wait for the surprises that Blockchain has in store for you. Let me know in the comments if I have missed anything here and I would be happy to get back to you.
