Businesses Cannot Afford To Ignore Blockchain And Bitcoins
In recent years, almost all industries have undergone major transformations due to digital technology. This includes finance, HR, manufacturing and healthcare. While manufacturing has been impacted by the rise of IoT, healthcare by wearables and AI such as IBM Watson, HR has transformed due to the availability of out of the box cloud based solutions such as Workday. The Financial services industry has probably undergone maximum transformation in comparison to all other industries. Being a highly regulated industry, there has always been a lot of paperwork and due diligence involved. Getting a loan processed or availing insurance was a time consuming task because of the number of checks and interfaces. However now Artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain and digital currencies have completely changed the landscape.
Most people relate blockchain to Bitcoins and other forms of digital currencies. However blockchain has use cases across all industries and tech savvy companies are increasingly beginning to leverage this technology. Blockchain is a digital public ledger that maintains a distributed record of transactions across a network of public computers. Businesses can use the blockchain ledger to record and track credit and debit transactions. One of the features of this technology is that it concatenates verified transactions into a sequence of lists and uses complex mathematical functions to arrive at a definitive record. Thus, it can help ensure data integrity and maintain records.
Understanding The Blockchain
A blockchain is made up of two components. One is the decentralized network for allowing and verifying the transactions. The second is the ledger that the network maintains. Everyone in the network can see the shared transaction ledger. But there is no single point of failure by which records can be corrupted or hacked. Likewise, there is no single organization that controls this data. Records stored by a blockchain are called blocks. Each encrypted block of code contains the history of every block that came before it with timestamped transaction data. Blocks are chained together and hence the name blockchain.
Many big companies and banks have taken interest in blockchain technology. Big businesses always drive innovation and this has led to the rise of blockchain based smart contracts. Some companies are using their cloud infrastructure to build custom blockchains for customers. For example building a worldwide food safety network of manufacturers and retailers. On the academic side researchers are exploring blockchain applications for innovative and transformational projects. There are many startups using this technology for everything from global payments to music sharing.
Blockchain technology finds use cases across a spectrum of services. This innovative technology has proven to be a major disruption for banks and traditional payment methods. Thus, it is not a surprise that fintech companies are racing against each other to see how they can best leverage this technology to improve their services. However, there are economic, legal, regulatory and technological hurdles to be crossed before the widespread adoption of the blockchain. A classic example is cryptocurrency such as Bitcoins where governments are struggling to understand its repercussions even as the Bitcoin continues to rally against normal currencies. For now, the future appears bright for blockchain and Bitcoins.