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Finance and shipping products are considered the most lucrative areas for blockchain adoption. But promising projects have taken off in other industries too, from gaming to energy trading. Here are four:

Xbox Blockchain Videogames have long been important testing grounds for new technology. Now, Microsoft has built a blockchain that can calculate the royalties due to Xbox game publishers nearly instantly. Under the old process, publishers would find out how much they made from game sales 45 days after the end of the month, making it hard for them to budget and to determine which games are resonating with players. “The data tell a business story about which games sold, which piece of intellectual property is the hottest,” says Grace Lao, general manager of global finance operations at Microsoft. “That’s important knowledge.”

Everledger The London-based start-up has built a blockchain that can track the ownership of individual assets, recording their history on an immutable ledger. The company says it has recorded the provenance of more than two million diamonds, uploading their serial numbers and distinctive characteristics, including cut and clarity. A project called Tracr led by De Beers Group, a unit of Anglo American (AAL.UK), has also tested a similar system, tracking 100 high-value diamonds, and expects it to be available to other companies later this year. Proponents say the efforts could help solve the problem of the proliferation of “blood diamonds” tied to war and genocide.

ID2020 Decades after the advent of the internet, tying digital records to an individual remains tricky. Identity theft and fraud are ubiquitous. But blockchain technology offers a possible solution, because it can embed identity documents and biometric information (fingerprints, retina scans) in software that’s both immutable and encrypted. Companies like Microsoft and Accenture, and humanitarian organizations like Mercy Corps, are working to build a system called ID2020 that can record that data for the 1.1 billion people, like refugees, whose lack of documents leaves them unable to prove their status or get services. Similar blockchain systems can also be used to verify identity for purposes of voting. West Virginia used a blockchain system with biometrics to allow veterans in some counties to vote earlier this year.

Power Ledger Just about anything that can trade can be recorded on a blockchain. And people who produce solar energy have become early adherents of the technology. One of the leaders in solar-energy trading is an Australian company called Power Ledger, which lets companies and people trade power on a transparent ledger and get paid in real time. Silicon Valley Power is now working with Power Ledger on a pilot to track the power used and produced at a California parking garage and track the energy credits produced, a process that has previously been convoluted and slow. Other solar projects abound, including a cooperative in Brooklyn, N.Y., to trade solar power on the blockchain.



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Write to Avi Salzman at avi.salzman@barrons.com