Blockchain 3.0: Potential Use-Cases & Future Adoption

Where Is Blockchain Headed?

Despite its infancy, ‘Blockchain’ as a concept continues to evolve at a rapid rate, with new iterations of the technology coming out faster than many can keep up with.

In terms of Blockchain’s successes, value transfer has been proven, and Distributed Ledger Technology continues to gain momentum as a viable solution to many of the problems inherent within centralized models.

Where is Blockchain headed? Let’s talk about Blockchain 3.0…

But what’s next? Where is the technology headed from here? More importantly, what lies in store for the future of Blockchain, specifically in regards to its practical use-case applications and future adoption?

In this article, I will explore an emerging new trend being referred to as ‘Blockchain 3.0’, with particular regard to 1 company by the name of Metabase, who is looking to spearhead the technology towards its next logical phase. This will be accompanied by a list of potential real-world problems that could be effectively tackled with this new paradigm in Blockchain technology.

Scalability: An Ongoing Dilemma

As with all emerging and potentially disruptive technologies, first iterations bring with it over-bloated, grandiose promises, yet when actually put into application, are faced with technological roadblocks that render potential use-cases as redundant. One particular problem that cannot be ignored is that of scalability.

Image Credit: Thavash Govender (Data and AI SSP at Microsoft)

Blockchain 1.0 for instance, as marked by Bitcoin’s unveiling by Satoshi Nakamoto, was a groundbreaking feat of technology, though its limitations of scalability and resource wastage quickly became apparent. Bitcoin’s transaction processing capacity maximum, to this day, is estimated between 3.3 and 7 transactions per second (TPS).

Image Credit: Thavash Govender (Data and AI SSP at Microsoft)

Blockchain 2.0 then gave way to other protocol-layer platforms such as Ethereum, which utilised a combination of new code rules and pre-existing technologies such as smart contracts to circumvent Bitcoin’s flaws, though they have also evidently fallen short of achieving this goal. Even with the Ethereum network boasting 15 TPS, which is over 2x the TPS of Bitcoin, a gaming application by the name of CryptoKitties single-handedly brought the Ethereum network to a momentary halt.

Does Blockchain 3.0 hold the future of value transfer?

Introducing Blockchain 3.0

While both Bitcoin and Ethereum communities are hard at work to implement upgrades that attempt to solve their respective scaling issues, it cannot be ignored that a major centralized player, Visa, is able to perform a whopping 1,700 TPS (or 24,000 TPS depending on who you ask). Regardless, if Blockchain is to succeed as a movement and a viable model for financial and enterprise systems, then these TPS limitations must surely be overcome.

As we approach 2019, we are now at the cusp of the next iteration of Blockchain, aptly named ‘Blockchain 3.0’. But what exactly is it, and why is it better than its earlier counterparts?

In a nutshell, Blockchain 3.0 platforms set out to meet the demands of large enterprises by offering a solution that is truly scalable for business. Many are claiming to offer TPS in the 100's and even 1000's.

Bitcoin’s success has established itself as a proof-of-concept, and has also proven that Distributed Ledger Technology can offer a viable mode of value-transfer.

The next logical steps for Blockchain 3.0 would then be to build on these successes while improving on the technology’s ability to better facilitate transactions in terms of speed, cost, and throughput.

As a proof-of-concept, Bitcoin has succeeded. Though there is a long road ahead if widespread adoption is to happen.

Blockchain 3.0 Adoption & Use-Cases?

In order to further understand where Blockchain 3.0 would likely see use-cases emerge, let’s look at one 3rd generation Blockchain company in particular: Metabase. Metabase serves as a suitable case-study for possible use-cases as they are tackling the scaling challenges we have discussed in regards to Blockchain 1.0 and 2.0.

Blockchain 3.0 Case Study: Metabase

What is Metabase?

Metabase, a project by Intrepid Ventures, is a high-performance blockchain and ‘Smart Opcodes’ platform that allows entrepreneurs and next-generation businesses to build their own decentralized applications on.

Featuring a native, advanced virtual machine, the protocol aims to provide a blockchain protocol solution that offers robust programming capabilities that are designed with security, usability and scalability in mind.

Through light client implementations both on mobile and browser platforms, Metabase has set out to create seamless integration for blockchain-based applications.

“While emerging blockchain technologies have revolutionized usability among an elite developer community, it has fallen short in making the development of cryptocurrency, blockchain technology, and decentralized applications easy and accessible to entrepreneurs and innovators, regardless of their technical acumen or literacy.” — Collin Thompson (Cofounder & CEO @ Intrepid Ventures)

Protocols flying the ‘Blockchain 3.0’ flag such as Metabase are pushing for increased security and usability, more robust programming ecosystems, and improved governance frameworks.

Who is Metabase for?

Metabase is geared toward helping entrepreneurs, small to medium businesses, enterprises and government leverage a multidimensional blockchain platform to build innovative dApps and smart business solutions.

Users can utilize their Smart OpCodes platform to efficiently monetize smart contract libraries via a user-friendly interface.

Potential Use-Cases With A Blockchain 3.0 Platform

Let’s look at 3 potential use-cases that a Blockchain 3.0 platform like Metabase could potentially set out to solve.

Data Storage

Concerns over data privacy and security are fast on the rise, and businesses, corporations and government all need a more secure way of managing sensitive information. Due to blockchain’s nature of being immutable and virtually tamper-proof, it serves as a practical, trustless solution to a widespread problem.

The global amount of data set to grow exponentially (there are currently 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created each day), and earlier iterations of Blockchain technology just do not have the capacity to house large amounts of information.

Blockchain 3.0 solutions such as Metabase “address scalability at a technical level by describing an innovative next-gen blockchain protocol that scales with adoption”.

Of course, to imagine that a single blockchain could store the entire world’s data would still be a pipe dream at this stage, however, practical usage at enterprise and governmental levels is reasonable to imagine by Blockchain 3.0’s standards.

Concerns over data privacy and security are fast on the rise, and businesses, corporations and government all need a more secure way of managing sensitive information

Healthcare

With ageing populations on the rise, governments are lacking the infrastructural resources in order to provide basic human services such as healthcare.

According to a 2015 report by the United Nations Department of Economic & Social Affairs, “between 2015 & 2030, those aged over 60 years will grow by 56%”. This will cause unimaginable burden and stress on our healthcare systems if action is not taken.

Currently, the infrastructural systems present in healthcare struggles to track and record verifications, movement of assets, ownership and identity. Streamlining these processes via Blockchain technology could potentially save registries billions of dollars of taxpayer funds.

Blockchain serves as a viable solution to radically transform the current pitfalls of our healthcare systems, by making services radically more efficient, fairer and cheaper.

Currently, the infrastructural systems present in healthcare struggles to track and record verifications, movement of assets, ownership and identity.

Supply Chain

By today’s standards, the supply chain industry is rife with convoluted systems and processes. Tracking transactions is an overly complex situation due to how many intermediaries are all participating in the chain.

As a result, the supply chain industry is largely inefficient and susceptible to fraudulent activity.

As supply chains are complex and usually involve many participants and moving parts, there are a lot of areas in which fraud can not only be committed but also go undetected.

Blockchain is an ideal solution in tackling supply chain issues as it can monitor real-time tracking, enforce transparency and help make processes more efficient via automated verification systems.

Tracking transactions is an overly complex situation due to how many intermediaries are all participating in supply chains.

To Conclude…

Metabase, along with other 3.0 platforms, are worth keeping an eye on as they begin to usher in a new revolution in Blockchain technology. Indeed, Metabase and the wide variety of 3.0 protocols out there have ambitious plans that look to disrupt our current, and arguably archaic infrastructural systems, both on an enterprise and governmental level.

If Blockchain 3.0 is designed with the demands of large enterprises in mind, it will be interesting to see how Metabase unfolds, and in what areas (public or private) we will see adoption uptake first.

What are your thoughts on Blockchain 3.0 platforms like Metabase? Let me know in the comments section.