Hint: It’s Blockchain Technology. In this article we will analyse 3 captivating case-studies about recent industrial problems that could be solved with the blockchain technology.

If you are unfamiliar with the concept of blockchain, here is a short overview: The blockchain (block chain) technology represents a distributed database which storage devices are not connected to a common server. This database stores an ever-growing list of ordered records called blocks. Each block has a timestamp and a link to the previous block. As a result, an immutable database managed autonomously is formed, without a single point of failure. More about why immutability in blockchain is important in an article by Kevin Doubleday.

Volkswagen Group Emissions Scandal

Volkswagen Group and the exhaust gas scandal. The company manipulated nitric oxide measurements and tricked CO2 values. According to German Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt, 2.4 million vehicles in Germany had their software manipulated. The VW group has dealt with the emissions scandal for a long time and it has cost the firm over 25$ billion.

The Volkswagen diesel scandal has shown us that even highly respected entities can go wrong. The current system has multiple points of low trust, large administrative costs, insufficient quality of data and intermediaries with vested interest in tax.

A scandal-plagued company like Volkswagen, might have avoided the diesel emissions cheating situation if they have used blockchain technology. Blockchain could have eased the process of tracking emissions as it represents an appealing and advanced solution to a number of crucial challenges of emissions monitoring and taxation.

Consider a scenario where an independent sensor (or sensors) is positioned near some manufacturing plant or piece of equipment where it can collect and evaluate the volume of emissions, the consistence of those emissions (CO2, methane or other), the type of equipment being tracked, the time and date of measurement.

Nowadays, Volkswagen is actively conducting test with blockchain as a solution to avoid odometer tampering and secure control over access to cars. With these pilot projects, Volkswagen is in front of many carmakers by considering Blockchain implementations beyond business applications.

The blockchain-based mileage clocking system VW is testing allows each odometer reading to be saved, making it impossible for odometer fraud to go unnoticed. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates this problem costs car buyers more than $1 billion a year. Drivers can save their mileage data on a distributed ledger at regular intervals, and those data can’t be tampered with. The goal is to make the used car market for VWs more transparent and secure, the company says.

“With this approach, we can assume the vehicle history will be more accurate and verifiable,” Dionis Teshler, CTO, at automotive cybersecurity firm GuardKnox Cyber Technologies. “It will be harder for potential sellers to skew the truth about the condition and usage of the vehicle,”

Carbon emission tax is a measurable business cost that will affect business reality in the foreseeable future and there is a need to measure emissions better. Customer are unwilling to pay for such equipment and it is highly unlikely that companies will devote much of their effort in building a solution. Certainly there is no easy solution, but blockchain can help the industry by assuring device integrity, minimisation of data manipulation, tax administration and collection as well as advancing the climate agenda.

GM taking risk and layoffs

General Motors has announced it may cut 14,000 salaried jobs (15% reduction) and close 5 factories, including four in the U.S. and one in Canada. It’s the automaker’s biggest restructuring effort since it went bankrupt a decade ago.

Well, this shows the depth of the slump for sedans in the North-American market, particularly in the USA. Significant shift, close to 70% of sales are now SUVs and pick-ups, dramatic shift in consumer buying behaviour. The industry is having to make cuts as a result. This is a reaction to the softness of the market and the automaker is now adjusting to this market to show that they can turn the ship around.

There are other factors in place which play a significant role such as the Trump’s administration trade policy and the result of a recent announcement that GM faces federal probe over faulty brakes on 2.7M pickups & SUVs. This is an industry-wide phenomenon as over 28 million vehicles were recalled in 2017 alone.

If this sounds ridiculous to you, you’re not the only one. There is clearly something wrong in the auto industry when this large amount of people are being informed about potentially deadly problems with their vehicles.

However, a blockchain-based tracking system would be helpful.

Introducing blockchain technology in the automotive supply chain will resolve a number of the problems around constant recalls, fake products and consumer safety. It will not make sure that every part works as it is supposed to, but it will mitigate the damage when people face problems with their vehicles.

There is lack of transparency in the supply chain of spare parts, which is why counterfeiters flourish. Blockchain can detect counterfeit parts in the chain and easily trace their origin. So if a shipment of brakes has not been registered on the blockchain, a manufacturer can be sure that the parts are unusable and they would not be installed.

With blockchain technology in place, manufacturers will be able to track and trace the faulty auto-parts all the way to the individual vehicle, allowing companies to pinpoint the exact cars that need to be recalled.

If a damaged product originates from one supplier’s factory, the issue can be located in the supply chain and only the cars with those parts will get recalled.

Consequently, blockchain technology will prevent large-scale recalls, allow us to locate failures and quickly inform owners when there is an issue. It will work from both ends by preventing counterfeit parts from entering the supply chain and helping manufacturers respond faster and more effectively to keep consumers safe.

NASA’s Mars Landing

The InSight landed on Mars on an equatorial plane called Elysium Planitia. The lander arrived on 26th of November, acing a touchdown. Now, the lander on the Martian surface will focus on observation and gathering data to address the missions goals.

The lander is just one of the many steps humanity will take towards colonising Mars. How does all this translate to blockchain?

For example, SputnikVM which is a sidechain from Ethereum Classic can run on its own as a side-chain on IOT devices. Among other things, it can be applied to satellites, which would make it an interesting mining case. Due to their proximity to the sun day and night, Satellite solar panels can mine at a higher efficiency, something near 40% efficiency.

In fact, such an idea has been discussed before by cryptographers like Peter Todd, where we can generate more electrical power by mining bitcoin in space.

How would that work? One proposition is to beam electricity from space, but another suggestion is to use bitcoin instead. Bitcoin transfer from space to earth represents the money behind the power generated. The satellite will mine the required amount of watts in bitcoin, then send the funds to Earth to be used for purchasing power from the grid in terms of equivalent bitcoin value.

Imagine, the Mars colonists have an overabundance of energy produced by solar satellites. The excess can be converted back to an earth-based cryptocurrency, ensuring more funds for the Mars colonisation mission.

We need to understand that although NASA is sending robots today, most likely it will be private companies that would start from scratch on the Mars surface with the absence of a nation as a coloniser.

As carrying gold and paper currencies would be inefficient use of fuel, private companies will issue a cryptocurrency for the Mars base and proceeds will be used to sponsor the mission. By involving large space players like SpaceX in the issuance of Martian cryptocurrency, we can have investors buy Martian cryptocurrency as a security in return for the long term perceived value of a Martian colony and economy. A Martian currency will be super valuable, and not just due to the satellite solar power mining example mentioned before, but also in other ways.

Falcon Heavy dual rocket landings

The list of possibilities for blockchain is endless, and it’s time to start asking ourselves: “When will mass adoption occur?”

Check also: 4 ways businesses used crowd-wisdom to innovate and avoid ending-up in scandals. As a crowdsoucing platform on the blockchain, Crowdholding is helping companies solve problems that matter together with an engaged community of innovative people.

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