There has been a lot of fuss about Blockchain and Bitcoin recently. More and more people are recognising this technology and are showing interest in it. Bitcoin ETFs already exist, national TVs and Bloomberg regularly report on it. Unfortunately, I feel that Blockchain itself is still a little bit in the shades of Bitcoin even though it is the technology that allows Bitcoin to exist.

Nobody knows if Bitcoin will continue to be #1 but Blockchain is definitely here to stay. Why do I think like that? What is the underlying value of it? Well, there are just too many practical use cases. Here are some of them:

Blockchain lowers costs (even for Banks)

It is true that some people see Blockchain as the enemy of banks because it “cuts out the middleman”. However, some banks follow the saying “Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer”. They see the value in it and how it can optimize their day-to-day processes. According to Accenture, Blockchain will reduce banks’ infrastructure costs by about 30%. Currently, investment banks have to maintain their own database of transactions and customer information. Obviously, this costs money. Blockchain supports shared digital ledgers that can be used by multiple participants and simultaneously provide data security. In other words, Blockchain offers the necessary solutions for the above-mentioned costs.

Projects like Lockchain.co are another fantastic example how Blockchain can lower costs. It is a Hotel Booking and Vacation Marketplace that claims to offer 20% lower prices than any other site. There are 0% commissions, possible thanks to Blockchain. Smart contracts will manage the customer/host relationship and a decentralized ledger will manage payment processing, bookings and databases.

Blockchain will be used to track your apples

Goods have been shipped from country to country for thousands of years. The process of tracking those goods has developed with time. Nowadays, it is really sophisticated. Unfortunately, a number of problems still exist.

We all know the products in the supermarket that are Bio, Organic (and other healthy synonyms). Can you guarantee that your apple came directly from the farm to the shop? Probably not because it is difficult to track. You need to ask a central authority for information and it takes time to receive an answer. In the worst case, someone might have tampered with the data.

How does Blockchain help to solve these problems? Its decentralised character would enable all participants to have their own live version of the blockchain and to inspect it immediately. What’s more, a blockchain is a series of blocks that records data with hash functions and timestamps. Once the information is there, it is there to stay. The data cannot be changed or tampered with. Tracking goods could become a piece of cake.

It can take Emotionless Decisions

Imagine the following scenario. You own a marketing agency and a client promises to give you 100 000$ if you achieve certain goals. Of course, you are excited and that’s why you work day and night with maximum effort. Day by day you get closer to achieving the goals and finally ... you achieve them. Satisfied with the completed work and excited for the big payday, you request the promised reward. However, your client explains that he spent the money to buy a new car (emotional decision) and has no possibility to pay you. What can you do? You could either persuade them to pay you later or you have to go to court. Both options are unpleasant, time-consuming and going to court is never fun.

If Blockchain had been used, this wouldn’t happen. There are the so-called smart contracts which represent a piece of code running on top of a Blockchain network. If and when all requirements of the contract are met, it auto executes itself. Smart contracts are code and code has no emotions, no bias. The probability of corruption or breach of contract is 0.

There are many more use cases and maybe some which are not known yet. Without a doubt, a technology with so many practical use cases is here to stay. Time will show how it will change the world. Thanks for reading!