While people discuss changes in the Bitcoin price and the current state of the crypto market, Blockchain technology continues developing. It may happen that cryptocurrencies will disappear, but blockchain is definitely here to stay. Due to its unique innovative features, it will be implemented by more and more industries.

Read on to learn the basics of blockchain and its notable features. Let’s explore which key industries are more likely to be influenced by this technology and in what ways.

Blockchain’s key features

The main reason why blockchain is so actively discussed is its utility. Anybody can create a blockchain-based platform for literally anything. Banks and groceries, voting systems and casinos, streaming services and clinics – the distributed ledger principle is welcome everywhere. But which features make this technology so demanded?

Simply put, blockchain stands for a decentralized network of multiple nodes with the same information in each. There’s no central server – all computers in the chain store data. Without the single controlling server, it becomes easy to connect users directly, like in peer-to-peer systems. Additionally, information is encrypted and protected by special algorithms.

As a result, we have a globally distributed system with a high level of security, anonymity, and transparency. Users can check data and track its history but they can’t change it without a whole network’s consensus. In layman’s terms, blockchain is breakthrough because it offers a new-age approach to recording, storing, and exchanging information.

Industry-disrupting projects

There have been more than 1080 ICOs in 2018 so far. Compare this number with 873 in 2017 and 29 in 2016, and you’ll realize the blockchain adoption is constantly growing. Here are top five industries apart from finances that are expected to be highly modified by blockchain.

Digital world

So far as blockchain exists on the Internet and acts as a basis for digital money, the Internet should be the first area of its application. There are some sub-industries with high potential like digital advertising, online privacy, data processing, etc. Check bright examples of the already working projects to get the point:

• Basic Attention Token. The system pays users for watching ads, and creators – for publishing without middlemen.
• io. This project caters for the fair management of user data and is created for the digital advertising industry. It forces advertisers to pay users for exploiting their personal data.
• The system is designed for the digital identity sector. It allows users to fully control and verify documents on the Internet using the native open-source platform.
• The blockchain startup with ambitious goals such as creating a global network for storing, sharing, and monetizing big data through several irreversible databases.
• The Internet news agency which tries to aggregate public opinions from all over the world.

Integrating blockchain into the Internet industry opens the way for completely new projects with significantly improved convenience, speed, and security

Entertainment

In the field of entertainment, Blockchain may solve issues like piracy, inefficient streaming, or low payouts to intermediaries. With decentralized systems, content creators could contact consumers directly and nobody will need bootleg products like music or video.

So far as one of the catchy areas in the entertainment industry is gambling, it’s worth checking some projects as well. According to Katie Wager’s research on gambling with blockchain technology, blockchain-powered casinos are more secure and legit than traditional ones. Using them, gamblers can check RNGs to verify the website’s fairness or protect themselves from hackers by applying smart contracts.

The most known examples of gambling projects based on the distributed ledger technology are Edgeless or vDice. There are also a lot of so-called crypto casinos which work like usual centralized systems but do accept some crypto coins.

Politics

The main thing in politics that can be improved by blockchain is the voting systems. In fact, both paper-based and online platforms for voting are outdated and vulnerable. Blockchain provides two great advantages – everybody can track results but nobody can modify them. A Swiss city, Zug, has already tested blockchain voting systems. Also, there are worldwide Follow my Vote and Democracy Earth startups that address the issue of unfair voting.

As for more global and futuristic ideas, blockchain may disrupt regular governmental services like housing and utilities, or social departments. For instance, the regulators in Dubai want to create a totally decentralized city with the paperless and citizen-friendly ecosystem. Blockchain can even serve purposes like creating a crypto utopia in the Pacific for living without national governments at all.

Education

Old-style traditional schools and universities are likely to be replaced by online courses and remote education that give access to knowledge to everybody regardless of gender, age, or race. What blockchain has to offer here?

There are some interesting decentralized education projects that could change the industry:

• Woolf University. The innovation from Oxford academics which relies on smart contracts to start the world’s first approved blockchain university.
• The community of teachers, students, and faculties acting like a global united classroom. Startup leaders call their facility Nauka University.
• Online courses based on blockchain with the native token. The project focuses on practical subjects like coding, business, cryptocurrency.

In addition, the renowned universities like MIT, Stanford, and University of Nicosia start offering courses on blockchain and cryptocurrency. This fact proves that the world accepts new trends and doesn’t consider them short-lived.

Healthcare

Similar to previous industries, healthcare operates big sets of data. The only difference is that this data is way more sensitive as it relates to people’s health. Potential errors and frauds are dangerous both for patients and clinics. Keeping and transferring medical records with transparency and reliability that come with blockchain is desirable for the industry.

The most notable use case is Ontology – its token is ranked 26th by market capitalization. It is a revolutionary multi-platform authorization system for identifying and exchanging data.

Here are some other examples:

• Focuses on protecting patients’ medical records.
• Builds a system for a secure communication between clinics.
• Connects different healthcare facilities in one network.

The innovative nature of blockchain

We can’t predict the future of blockchain. The situation is similar to the Internet in the 1990s that impressed the world and started transforming it. The following dot-com crash destroyed a lot of startups and the same may happen to blockchain-based projects. But the most innovative and useful of them will definitely survive, and furthermore, they will disrupt a lot of industries, changing our approach to ordinary things.

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