Cryptocurrencies are making a transition to become more mainstream. A few years ago, only a small number of computer scientists and enthusiasts were discussing Bitcoin, blockchain, and cryptocurrencies. Today, you have thousands of blockchain companies and government agencies around the world looking to discuss crypto.

As crypto goes from the innovator phase to the early adopters, here are the five applications of crypto that you should prepare for in 2018.

Application 1: Identity Management

While we may not stop to think about it, identity management is a key part of our daily lives. Identity online ranges from the simple (can someone else log into my social media account?) to the more nuanced (has my personal information, like social security number, been breached?).

According to a recent study, over 15 million American consumers lost $16 billion dollars to identity fraud in 2016. More worryingly, this number has increased by 50% from 2006 to 2016. And in 2017, credit bureau Equifax was hacked and more than 143 million consumers had their personal information exposed (FTC).

Thankfully, blockchain company Civic is looking to solve this problem. Civic allows you to store your personal information on a secure blockchain and then will alert you whenever someone is trying to use your information online. By providing you with an alert, you can confirm in real time whether the request is valid or not.

Application 2: Healthcare

Healthcare in the United States is a massive industry, and healthcare costs are only rising. Back in 1960, healthcare expenditures were $27.2 billion dollars and roughly 5% of GDP. In 2015, Americans spent $3.2 trillion (!) on healthcare, or roughly 18% of GDP.

At its core, a rise in the healthcare administration is what has caused this problem. Despite new technology, both IT and medical, we still have ballooning healthcare costs. That’s where the blockchain can come in.

Companies like Patientory and Gem are looking to build integrated solutions, so individuals, care facilities, and insurers have access to the relevant information: patient history, personal information, contact information, and payment method. By stitching together this myriad of data, in a secure way with granular permissions, they hope to reduce the amount of administrative overhead.

This is also not some far away trend. According to a survey by IBM, 16% of surveyed healthcare companies had plans to implement blockchain technology in 2017 while 50%+ expected to implement a blockchain solution by 2020.

Application 3: Pharmaceuticals

The pharmaceutical industry is also poised to be disrupted by blockchain technology. Amazingly, the United States accounts for roughly 5% of the global population but over 45% of the global pharmaceutical market. The U.S. share is valued at $450 billion dollars!

Despite the size and importance of this industry, there is still a significant amount of fraud: people who sell fake or dangerous prescription drugs. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “1 in 10 drugs sold in developing countries is fake or substandard, leading to tens of thousands of deaths” per year.

The MediLedger Project is looking to attack this specific problem. By providing an open platform to track pharmaceuticals through the entire supply chain, MediLedger plans to connect manufacturers, retail stores, and regulators.

Their platform hopes to bring an open standard, and with it, transparency, to this multibillion dollar industry.

Application 4: Supply Chain

In early 2017, Walmart successfully traced meat from a town in rural China to a Walmart distribution center in Beijing (source). Other tests include tracking produce from a shelf in one Walmart retail store back to the farm it was grown on.

Why are these tests unique? Because Walmart partnered with IBM to use blockchain technology to track a specific item through their entire supply chain in seconds. Compared to the previous methods, Walmart saw results more than 250,000 times faster! What used to take days would now take seconds.

And because global supply chains are complex, the need for a single blockchain that can integrate and store (immutable) data is key. Different parties along the way need to have access to specific information, and other participants need to be updated in real time.

Companies like Skuchain and OriginTrial are working to solve this problem.

Application 5: Video

Video is eating the internet. According to Cisco, video traffic will grow from 73% of consumer internet traffic in 2016 to a whopping 82% by 2021. And given the rate that the internet itself is growing, global video traffic will triple in size from 2016 to 2021, representing a 26% compound annual growth rate.

How can blockchain technology help? Research from the Anthesis Group showed that up to 30% of the servers across the globe sit idle! This represents 10+ million servers — and more than $30 billion of capital investment — of lost work and revenue.

Leveraging blockchain technology, we can dramatically improve these utilization rates. And that’s exactly what blockchain startup VideoCoin is here to do. By paying individuals for access to bandwidth, compute, and storage resources, VideoCoin can manage a global, decentralized content delivery network at a fraction of the cost.

The company estimates their decentralized video infrastructure can reduce costs by up to 80%, compared to today’s technology. Think of them as improving the utilization rate of IT assets (e.g., compute or storage resource) in a similar way to how Uber increases vehicle utilization or Airbnb increases home utilization.

Conclusion

From reducing IT costs to improving supply chain tracking, blockchain technology is starting to disrupt a number of industries. We expect more blockchain companies to be formed as large corporations feel more comfortable moving from proof-of-concept to live deployments of new technology.

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