Cryptocurrency is all the rage in many discussions. Whether it is up or down, Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies have revolutionized how the world views money and transaction. All of these currencies are built on a relatively new technology known as blockchain. It’s a method of keeping records that decentralizes information and makes fraud virtually impossible.
The entire process is complicated, but the basic idea is that anyone in the world can access the ledger and add to it. Because of that, the verification process is extremely meticulous, and counterfeiting the ledger would require an individual to have more than 50% of the networks processing power at their disposal. Technical tidbits aside, the most interesting aspect of blockchain is that currency is one of the least impressive ways it can revolutionize industries.
Stock Trading
Decentralizing stock trading does two big things: it slashes management fees and it improves security. As trading largely exists today, the cumbersome process that happens between making a decision as a buyer or seller and actually finalizing the transaction can take up to three days and involves multiple middlemen.
The fees associated with the work that goes into this transaction is largely passed onto the customers. A blockchain ledger enables the bulk of this work to be immediately verifiable. Transactions can happen in real time, and the overall cost of operating stock exchanges dropping, which yields more money in the pockets of investors. The concept is so promising that NASDAQ is already experimenting with blockchain ledgers.
Voting
Taking a full left turn from the financial, blockchain holds revolutionary promise for voters. The great challenges that exist to today are verifying votes and accurately counting them in a secure manner. Blockchain makes this easy.
The decentralization makes it near impossible to forge votes or voting tallies. It also removes political and party influences from the voting process. If implemented, blockchain voting can be streamlined to happen entirely online. This makes it more accessible than any other method. It also eliminates the need for recounts because the ledger is transparent and verifiable.
Digital Advertising
Swinging back in the direction of finances, blockchain can rebuild advertising. As things stand, digital marketing is largely run through centralized distributors. This consumes significant bandwidth and has difficult-to-measure returns.
A blockchain-based solution enables advertisers to entirely self-publish and interact more directly with their target audience. It also enables advertisers to pull dramatically more accurate data and improve their return on investments. At the highest end of potential, there exists a scenario where advertisers could directly pay consumers to interact with their content — circumventing middleman advertising costs all together.
Healthcare
Applied to healthcare, it represents a way to securely and swiftly share health records without risking privacy violations. This could enable healthcare scientists to analyze massive data pools that are currently unavailable.
It can help better identify health trends and solutions. It also makes it easier for healthcare providers to share specific patient data, and all of it can happen with remarkable anonymity. Only a direct care provider ever needs to be able to match your information with your identity, but when that is necessary, it can happen instantaneously.
Education
Lastly, we come to education. Obtaining non-digital records to verify any level of certification is slower and more expensive. A blockchain ledger can enable all education records to be instantly accessible and verifiable. And, like in the case of healthcare, records can remain private unless permission is granted by the individual. This can cut paper and administration costs for all levels of education, and it’s one of the most easy to implement opportunities to slash the runaway rising costs of college.
In truth, there are very few industries that won’t be touched or completely revamped by blockchain. In its most simple form, blockchain can improve on every record-keeping system that came before it. At best, it can offer entirely new solutions to old problems. Some of these applications may take years of development, but we can already see plenty of innovations in practice today. It won’t be long before your daily life and your work life are both tied as closely to the evolution of blockchain as they are to the internet itself.
About the Author
Jessica VerSteeg has enjoyed a successful career as a fashion and print model for nearly 10 years. During her time as a model she also become Miss Iowa US 2014 and placed in the top 10 at the Miss US pageant. After losing someone close to her due to an accidental over dose of pain killers she decided to dedicate herself to changing the perception of alternative pain killers like cannabis. She then founded AuBox, an upscale medical marijuana delivery service. But the laws and regulations from state to state and county to county are a complex web to deal with causing the cannabis industry to be fragmented. Jessica wants to help bring back the trust and respect the cannabis industry deserves, so she decided to build Paragon Coin. Jessica is focused on providing a blockchain platform the Cannabis industry to become transparent and stay compliant