Blockchain Use Cases

Blockchain is going to have a bigger impact on our society than the internet, Blockchain potentially drives value in a number of different ways company like Ethereum, IBM, Gemini and samsung driving Impactful Blockchain implementation across a wide range of industries.

• Blockchain removes business and technical friction by making the ledger independent of individual applications and participants and replicating the ledger across a distributed network to create an authoritative record of significant events. Everyone with permissioned access sees the same information, and integration is simplified by having a single shared blockchain model.
• Blockchain also enables a distributed trust architecture that allows parties that do not know or inherently trust one another to create and exchange value using diverse range of assets.
• With the use of smart contracts as part of the blockchain, actions can be codified such that changes in the blockchain trigger other actions.

Blockchain Use Cases

Gartner has identified multiple use cases for blockchain. These include:

1. Asset Tracking :  These use cases cover the tracking of physical assets through the supply chain to identify location and ownership accurately. Examples include tracking of automobiles through loan processes, artworks postsale, and locations of ocean freight and spare parts.
2. Claims : Multi-billion dollar market, This category covers automated claims processing in areas such as automobile, agriculture, travel, and life and health insurance. It also includes other claims, such as processing product recalls. this will also help to eliminate claim fraud.
3. Identity Management/Know Your Client (KYC) : This category covers uses where records must be securely tied to an individual. Examples include managing records of educational achievement, patient health, election identity and national identities.
4. Internal Record Keeping : In these use cases, the data to be secured remains within an individual organization. Examples include master data management, internal document management, purchase order and invoice records, and treasury record keeping.
5. Loyalty and Reward : This category includes use cases for tracking loyalty points (for retailers, travel companies and others) and providing internal rewards, such as to employees or students.
6. Payment/Settlement : Use cases in this category involve a payment between parties, or settlement of a trade. Examples include royalty payments, stock settlements, interbank payments, commercial lending, procure-to-pay processing and remittance processing.
7. Provenance: Similar to the asset-tracking use case, this covers recording the movement of assets, but the aim is to show the full history and ownership of the asset, rather than its location. Examples include: tracking biological samples and organs; establishing the provenance of wine, coffee, fish and other foods; certifying the authenticity of components; and tracking pharmaceuticals through their life cycle.
8. Shared Record Keeping: This category includes use cases where data needs to be shared securely between multiple participants. Examples include corporate announcements, multiparty hotel booking management, recording of flight data and regulatory reporting.
9. Smart Cities/the IoT : This group includes use cases that use blockchain to provide data tracking and to control functions for smart spaces or IoT solutions. These include peer-to-peer energy trading, administration of electric vehicle charging, smart grid management and control of wastewater systems.
10. Trade Finance : These use cases aim to streamline the process of financing trades, including managing letters of credit, simplifying trade finance and facilitating cross-border trade.
11. Trading: Use cases in this group aim to improve the process for buying and selling assets, including dealing in derivatives, trading of private equity and sports trading.

As this technology evolves, Gartner predicts that at least three other use cases will become more viable and could prove the revolutionary benefits that blockchain enables:

• Blockchain-based voting will benefit from improvements such as blockchain-related security, management of forks, system governance and ledger interoperability. Blockchain could also improve the tracking and traceability of voting tallies and voter rolls.
• Blockchain-based, self-sovereign digital identity will also become more realistic. This could rationalize the maze of the many-to-many suboptimal identity verification systems and relationships used across the globe.
• Cryptocurrency payments and remittance services will be used in countries with hyperinflation, with cryptocurrency preserving purchasing power and financial well-being.

Source: Gartner , I hope you enjoyed reading it..