One product, called a distributed contracting network, was just announced for Microsoft’s Xbox. Paul Brody, blockchain global innovation leader at EY, which helped create the product, said it was “a blockchain-based tool for enabling companies to execute digital contracts with each other — and very specifically, the primary focus is on digital media content, rights and royalties around everything from video games to media and entertainment — music, movies, etc.”

Xbox, which features games by publishers around the world, has traditionally tracked and calculated the royalties its content creators were owed manually and with spreadsheets, said Rohit Amberker, director of royalties and content operations at Microsoft. The process typically took 30 to 60 days. The new system is transparent, cutting down costs by a projected two-thirds, Mr. Brody said.

[Read more: Confused about blockchains? Here’s what you need to know.]

One of the first to use it will be Ubisoft, a game publisher, though once it is in use across Microsoft’s gaming ecosystem, it will encompass thousands of content partners, Mr. Amberker said. Eventually, the goal is for the blockchain to also handle payments and for it to be useful to anyone dealing with intellectual property or digital asset rights, including authors, songwriters and developers, he said.

The financial services industry is further along than other. Insurwave, a marine insurance program created by seven companies, started at the end of May for more than 1,000 ships. Shaun Crawford, the global head of insurance for EY, which is building the program with GuardTime, said insurance for ships has traditionally been a paper-intensive business.

It uses historical data and standard estimates to quantify insurance coverage divorced from the reality of any one ship’s particular risk. That can vary based on a vessel’s age, service history, the routes it travels (whether it passes through conflict zones where ships are more likely to be hijacked) and other factors. With Insurwave, insurers can, for instance, increase a premium on a ship set to sail through a dangerous zone, which might in turn prompt it to choose another course. Everything is signed through the blockchain.

The blockchain is in place across the shipping company A. P. Moller-Maersk’s vessels. The insurance companies Willis Towers Watson, XL Catlin and MS Amlin are also on the platform.

“It’s a very sleepy old industry — insurance — and we’re shaking it up a bit,” Mr. Crawford said. In building the product after working on proofs of concept, he said: “We realized we’re not digitizing existing processes, but transforming the way we do business. We had to re-architect our proposition two or three times to really get the blockchain thing working, so there’s a big difference between a proof of concept and the reality of blockchain.”