How Will Blockchain Transform Business in 2018?

To put things in perspective, blockchain technology has completed the early-adoption stage of acting as an innovation trigger, and is proceeding to the next level of its growth. We’re expecting to witness its maturity by 2023. The global distributed ledger market will probably achieve $5.430 million by then.

By reaching regulatory certainty and providing clear business cases, blockchain technology could reach its tipping point within 5 years. The next two years are critical for technology to demonstrate sustainable value and show adoption beyond proof-of-concepts. In 2018, certain pilots will go viral, and new products and services will emerge. IT service providers are likely to accelerate investments to build capability around blockchain technology. And the network effect will take hold.

The fact is that this cryptocurrency underpinning technology works to bring the value of the distributed ledger even further than global industries and governments. It is revolutionizing the way financial transactions, such as taxes and funding, happen, thereby supporting smart contracts as they transform businesses. Inspiring results beyond financial-industry services are yet to come. Small and medium companies could also fundamentally change the way they do business. The development of new applications will make relationships with customers more dynamic.

How It Works: Key Characteristics

Let’s have a look at how blockchain may upend your business model:

• Every transaction is consolidated and time-fixed in a chronological sequence for additional reliability.
• Each block of data is linked to a previously-verified dataset, creating a “chain” of records making the entire database secure and tamper-resistant.
• Database shares both public and private copies of the entries, enabling all participants to verify new blocks.
• Access to the data is provided for all parties; there is no central authority and no intermediaries, and no control by government or any other institution.

Applying blockchain technology to a certain business model makes sense only if specific conditions are met:

• You need a database.
• Don’t expect high-performance transactions in milliseconds.
• You need to keep your transactions private.
• You are managing contractual relationships.
• It requires more than two parties.
• You are looking to reduce costs.
• shared access by participants
• Contributors are not mutually trusted, and they don’t have a third party as an intermediary.

Otherwise, consider alternative approaches.

Commercial activities opportunities are appearing daily. Company execs aim to use blockchain technology to streamline their businesses. Looking back at 2017, blockchain’s impact on business industries was significant.

To estimate the attention this distributed ledger is attracting, let’s have a look at the latest Google trends results for a search of “blockchain.” The interest started hitting high spots in 2016, and reached an enormous level in 2017.

What’s next?

Commercial Future

The financial sphere, the service sector, and cryptocurrency are the spheres blockchain will impact the most. According to a McKinsey & Company report, the banking industry is expected to spend about $400 million on distributed ledger technology by 2019. The focus is on financial-services use cases: data storage, currency exchange, peer-to-peer transfers, ridesharing, and trading platforms. Non-financial approaches that can be applied include authentication, real estate, digital identity, smart contracts, application development, and IoT. Blockchain is an irreplaceable technology for any sphere with sensitive data.

The Worldwide Journey of Blockchain

Governments worldwide are beginning to recognize this digital ledger’s benefits as a solution to sharing data. Government leaders and visionaries are trusting this transformative technology, and are taking steps to explore possible applications.

Looking Ahead

Most people have heard about blockchain as the backbone of Bitcoin growth. Limiting this technology to cryptocurrencies would be a destructive mistake for its potential.

It is a fundamental technology, with vigorous potential to build up a new foundation for commercial and public systems. This process is going to be progressive and stable, as industrial and corporate changes have already been presented in today’s growth.

Blockchain integration with various business models will dramatically change collaborative processes. It is enough to comprehend the core principles and benefits of this technology to feel its disruptive potential. Learn how to make your business smarter with technical innovation!

BLOCKCHAIN WORLDWIDE JOURNEY

Estonia. The small European country of Estonia is gearing up to become the first crypto-country in the world. The country is already using Blockchain technology.

Slovenia. Aside from Estonia, Slovenia is again vying for its place as an early adopter of this technology. Slovenia is home to one of Bitcoin’s largest exchanges.

China. The government of China developed a prototype of a prospective national cryptocurrency in the country in June 2017.

Great Britain. The U.K. government is currently piloting a blockchain-based system for the payment of health benefit claims.

India. In India, experiments are already on and blockchain technology is generating significant interest across a wide range of industries.

Australia. The government of Australia is exploring ways to replace its separate passport and birth certificate databases with a single blockchain-based system.

Brazil. Brazil is willing to use the Ethereum blockchain to prove that signatures collected for petitions to the Brazilian congress exist. Brazilian legislators now are turning to Ethereum to solve that issue in one of the first uses of a cryptocurrency by a political system.

The USA. In the United States, the blockchain technology is disruptive as a key business focus for several companies across all industries.