Week 8: Powerful business use-cases

Introduction

Before we look at some powerful use-cases of blockchain technology, let's have a look at the four main types of blockchain; public, private, consortium & hybrid.

Public blockchains are accessible to anyone who has access to the internet & they are agnostic. In fact, anyone can connect to the blockchain & set-up & run a node to take part in a public blockchain.

Private blockchains are more like a traditional database in that one person / entity completely controls what is accessed & added hence some would argue that they are not true to the fundamentals of blockchain; decentralised, transparent & immutable. They do however, have their uses.

Consortium blockchains are some of the most widely used & attractive to businesses as they effectively group together a conglomerate of linked companies where they all participate in managing the blockchain. This fosters trust between the entities due to the semi-decentralised nature (between the stakeholders), transparency & immutability of the data on the blockchain.

Hybrid blockchains work by bringing together the aggregated data from a private blockchain which is then followed by adding the hashed data to a public blockchain. This is good for transparency but lacks the interactivity of full public & consortium blockchains.

We can see from the above image that a public blockchain is permissionless (free to access for all, such as Bitcoin) & as we move towards permissioned blockchains, the access & the ability to interact with these hybrid, consortium & private versions becomes more restricted.

Use-case one | IBM Farmer Connect

The IBM Farmer Connect initiative aims at adding verfiable proof of where the coffee beans in your morning coffee come from from farmer through the numerous handlers to your cup. It also allows consumers to directly support (tip) the farmers through an app which is a novel way of connecting farmers & their ultimate customers all the time building & fostering trust between the numerous stakeholders.

Use-case two | Renault XCEED blockchain | IBM

Renault has partnered with IBM to create the XCEED blockchain which is an industry first initiative aimed at injecting more transparency into the compliance & conformity side of the supply chain. This is a great way to build in an element of trust between the many stakeholders in this very complex heavy industry.

Use-case three | Ripple ODL

Ripple's on demand liquidity (ODL) aims at competing with the traditional global banking system (SWIFT) by facilitating fast, cheap, traceable & carbon neutral cross-border payments. In a nutshell, companies exchange their origin currency (e.g. euro) for the digital asset XRP, send it on the XRP Ledger (blockchain) in around 3 seconds & switch it to the destination currency (e.g. USD) to pay out.

Wrap-up

These are just a few key areas of business that are being disrupted by blockchain technology & as we move away from Web 2.0 towards Web 3.0 these use-cases are going to become more numerous & varied so hold on, we are heading into a very exciting period in history. Some would call this, the Exponential Age.

Disclaimer

This series of newsletters complements the weekly blocklunch45 sessions and is for educational purposes only as my mission is to educate as many business leaders, entrepreneurs and consultants as possible about the miriad of amazing use-cases of blockchain. It is not financial advice in any shape or form and the examples given are to illustrate the content only.

If as a result, participants and / or readers decide to invest on any of the companies or brand names mentioned, then that is entirely at their own risk. Please do your own research (DYOR).

If you are interested in joining the blocklunch sessions then please email me at [email protected].

Jeremy Williams.