The most popular online business periodicals have been populated with articles that detail the many ways in which blockchain is expected to change the world. While many people still think of blockchain as synonymous with cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, its expansion as a technology has expanded beyond the exchange of funds.
According to some business professionals, no industry will be left untouched by this modern technology, and evidence supporting this assertion continues to manifest itself across many different sectors. Following are three industries that blockchain is sure to change in the near future.
- Banking and payments
Leaders from some of the world’s most powerful banking institutions are moving quickly to leverage the power of blockchain to their advantage, with one recent survey from Accenture, a business management consulting company, indicating that 90 percent of the banking executives surveyed confirmed that their firms are investigating the potential use of blockchain in business. Further, research performed by IBM indicates that around 15 percent of the world’s banks are expected to implement blockchain by the end of 2017, and the reasons are clear: the technology has wide-reaching potential for reducing costs, streamlining operations, and offering better products to customers. Blockchain could help to reduce the incidence of fraud due to its resilience against cyberattacks and the ease of compliance with current regulations, as well as lower costs, while providing better security when it comes to facilitating payments for clients.
- Private transport and ridesharing
The ridesharing industry has seen a lot of change in the last several years, with companies such as Uber and Lyft revolutionizing the way that people around the world arrange private transportation. Blockchain may yet further change the industry in the near future, as it could pave the way for peer-to-peer ridesharing and private transport services that eliminate the need for management by a corporate third party. Currently, drivers and passengers alike rely on a centralized platform controlled by companies such as Uber, which has set the standard for the ridesharing industry and its cost for both parties. The company ultimately profits from the transaction by recouping a fee for facilitating services. Blockchain could allow individual car owners to arrange for the provision of ride services directly with passengers after both have digitally verified their identity. Then it could be paid for using cryptocurrency exchanged via e-wallets owned by both the driver and the passenger and protected through smart contracts that outline the terms of the ride. This use of blockchain could put power directly in the hands of users via peer-to-peer networks.
- Online music
As with the ridesharing industry, the peer-to-peer capabilities enabled by blockchain hold enormous potential for the online music world. In current practice, the artists who actually create the music that is then distributed through various mediums end up seeing very little of the profits. This is particularly true in an age when file sharing between listeners and streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music have overtaken traditional music-buying habits. Consumers are no longer purchasing music. Even when they are, it often takes years for payment to reach musicians, leaving most of them unable to make a living off of their craft. However, because blockchain acts as a decentralized distributed ledger, it holds significant potential for artists’ ability to share their music in several ways. First, blockchain technology could establish a database that accurately records the digital rights of individual songs, which is a problem that the industry struggles with. Second, by uploading music to the blockchain, the copyright information could be unalterably encoded into a song’s file, with smart contracts detailing the percentage of royalty fees paid out to each contributor each time a song is played. Artists could then be compensated fairly and immediately for their work, without the need for management through and payment for a third party.
Mikhail Golomb 