People have talked about the applicable scenarios and opportunities of blockchain countless times. But in fact, it is very stupid and absurd to simply and rudely tie the blockchain to all services.
Simply using the word "blockchain" (rather than the technology behind it) to speculate is empty after all. But if used properly, blockchain can indeed promote the development of certain economic fields.
To achieve this goal, we need to do it step by step. Gartner experts believe that the blockchain is currently on the verge of "getting rid of fantasy". At this stage, its technical disadvantages are exposed, and most of the media are critical.
So, is there really a good product based on blockchain? If so, in what areas?
First of all, financial services are a good choice. After all, many traditional intermediaries have problems of low transparency and high commission. At present, many big banks have been studying and testing decentralized solutions. So what are the options on the market now?
Networking is a good example. Based on Hyperledger Fabric, it can offset multiple positions or pay for transactions between two or more parties. It is usually used to determine which party should pay in a multi-party agreement. As a general concept, net amount has many more specific uses in financial markets (securities trading).
In addition, discussions on blockchain bonds, mortgages and bank guarantees are also endless. Almost all big banks, including Islamic banks, are trying this method.
Hyperledger Fabric and Corda blockchain technology are often applied to other use cases, but the final conclusion can only be drawn after continuous follow-up.
Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Bank of JPMorgan Chase and China and Commonwealth Bank of Australia all achieved good results on 20 19. In addition, in the banking industry, people often mention cross-border financial transactions and even intend to get rid of SWIFT.
Some people think that blockchain technology has great promotion prospects in copyright protection and combating data fraud. For example, for the purpose of copyright protection, Sputnik DLT, a startup company, developed a depositor service on the Waves platform.
Similarly, Emernotar is a similar solution based on Emercoin, which adopts SHA-5 12 algorithm. According to the developer, enterprises and lawyers can use Emernotar service to sign contracts and use online services to collect user licenses, and creative industry representatives can also use these services to confirm copyright.
Democracynotary.org platform based on Emercoin technology aims to protect important information related to elections. Although blockchain can't guarantee the anonymity of voting in the election process, it can at least guarantee the authenticity of voting.
Recently, the effect of this platform was tested in a referendum in Macedonia: the referendum was about whether to ratify a treaty with Greece-calling for changing the name of Macedonia to "North Macedonia". The platform notarizes the public reports in the referendum process, thus blocking the spread of false information.
Blockchain use cases have great development prospects in real estate transaction registration. Last year, someone tried to use the smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain to conduct such purchase/sales transactions in the jurisdiction. Although not all local legislatures can understand what lawyers are doing, there have been and will be attempts.
For example, the most famous example is the sale of 65,438+00 acres of land through the decentralized real estate market in California. The transaction is conducted entirely in bitcoin and registered using the blockchain. Since then, the EU has also completed the first blockchain real estate sales.
20 18 12, the Swiss financial market supervision bureau approved the business model of the blockchain company "Blockimmo Real Estate Company". At present, the Blockimmo platform is in the testing stage and can be used by residents in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. After that, the company plans to enter other European markets.
Some experts are very optimistic about the application prospects of blockchain in wholesale, logistics and other fields; But at the same time, some experts think it is useless in this field. However, as consumers, we should be more sure of the success of this industry.
In the late autumn of 20 18, oil giants BP and Shell, large banks and companies launched the Vakt blockchain platform, aiming at optimizing the commodity trading process, including converting paper documents into smart contracts.
At the same time, the UAE has also used blockchain technology in this field-Maqta Gateway LLC launched the first blockchain logistics solution in Abu Dhabi. Silsal blockchain technology developed by the company can improve logistics and freight efficiency. Maqta Gateway hopes to reduce the workload of paperwork, promote real-time status update and speed up the enjoyment of information through DLT technology.
Last autumn, the blockchain platform of IBM Food Trust was also launched–this platform is based on Hyperledger Fabric technology and aims to standardize the supply chain of the food industry. Well-known enterprises such as Carrefour, Nestle, Dole Food, Thai Tai Sen Food, krogh, Unilever and Wal-Mart are all members of the platform. The monthly cost of IBM blockchain services ranges from $65,438+000 to $65,438+00000, which also explains why these industry giants are willing to invest in this area.
20 17 autumn, decentralized shelf. Online auction protocol started. Car dealers can conduct car sales and leasing transactions through this platform.
A year later, Paipai.com was invested by Japanese IT giant Broad Leaf. At the same time, broadleaf has also obtained the shelf supply license. Network technology has established a trade network for automobile and parts sales in Southeast Asian countries (including Japan, Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, Australia, India and Singapore).
By the end of 20 18, 60,000 vehicles in the United States had joined the service network. Shelves. The network also realizes the interaction with Carfax web service, which can provide vehicle history reports to individuals and enterprises. For example, when the startup company Auto 1 Group GmbH bought a car in Germany, it recorded the loan and insurance products through the blockchain, which greatly improved the transaction speed (if traditional paperwork is adopted, it will take two weeks to complete).
The survey of large companies by IBM Business Value Institute shows that by 20021year, blockchain will play a key role in the automobile industry, and at the same time, blockchain will also be applied to the aviation field. For example, S7 Airlines and Alpha Bank (Russia) realized the real-time payment of aircraft fuel costs by applying smart contracts on the Hyperledger blockchain platform.
All walks of life in the industry believe that DLT technology can simplify and speed up the settlement process of both parties, eliminate various financial risks and realize process automation. As in the field of wholesale logistics, this technology also has important application significance in the field of transportation.
Blockchain technology has gradually penetrated into the public domain and is widely used in the certificate authentication process. For example, the Proofstack service can archive files with the owner's personal signature, date and time stamp, and then write the archive hash hash into the blockchain. Users can also choose the country that affects the timestamp type and the storage location (computer, cloud) needed to generate the archive. People can confirm when and by whom files are archived by creating archives. At the same time, the application of blockchain in the judicial system is becoming more and more common. For example, ServeManager and Integra have applied blockchain technology to services that track the delivery of subpoenas.
In China, the government-supported blockchain scheme is developing rapidly. Its judicial blockchain system "Tian Ping Chain" was released only three months ago, and about 1 10,000 pieces of online evidence data have been collected. All materials submitted on the platform have passed DLT certification, totaling190,000 copies. The electronic evidence system of the platform was jointly developed by Beijing Internet Court, China Industrial Control System Emergency Response Team (CICS-CERT), Research Center of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Baidu Internet Group and TrustDo Blockchain Venture Company. Based on the hyperchain infrastructure of Internet giant Baidu, the platform optimizes the process of evidence collection and storage, and ensures the authenticity of data through blockchain. In addition, the platform also saves time and resources by reducing the litigation costs related to the Internet.
As a global leader in container transportation, Maersk began to use the Insurwave blockchain solution last spring. The marine insurance platform is jointly developed by consulting firm EY and Guarditime * * * and is based on Microsoft Azure cloud technology. In the first year of cooperation with Insurwave, Maersk plans to insure 65,438+0,000 ocean-going ships, and the total number of digital transactions will exceed 500,000.
At present, users of the platform include Willis Towers Watson, XL Catlin and MS Amlin. Developers are trying to expand the functions of Insurwave and expand insurance business to aviation and energy fields.
Calastone, a British financial technology company specializing in investment flow management, announced that all calculations will be transferred to the blockchain. The company expects that this technology will help the global settlement department cut billions of dollars in costs. Calastone provides risk assessment management services, IT infrastructure and payment solutions to more than 65,438+0,700 companies, including JPMorgan Chase Asset Management Company, Schroeder Company and Jingshun Company.
If the enterprise's goal is to achieve transparency in transaction and information input in DLT registration center, it will create an excellent application scenario for blockchain; However, if companies pursue anonymity or "tracking" financial transactions, the blockchain will have no chance to display its fists.
Singapore Power Group has launched a blockchain trading market for renewable energy (REC) certificates. The representative of the company said that the "internal development" platform aims to improve the security, reliability and traceability of such certificate transactions.
REC certificate is a certificate to prove that solar panels release electric energy, which is sold by Cleantech Solar Asia and LYS Energy Solutions. Both City Developments Limited and DBS Bank, which are interested in purchasing certificates, are very interested in this platform. Katoen Natie Singapore has also joined the platform, and plans to start renewable energy power generation capacity soon.
KT, the largest telecom company in Korea, has also launched its own blockchain network, and its distributed registration technology involves user authentication and improving international roaming services. KT can use this to securely transmit customer data to its partners. The network bandwidth can handle100,000 transactions per second.
Time will tell whether these measures will be recognized by the mass market. Similarly, the application of blockchain in power, data and user-identified accounts/records/transactions is also a cliche.
At the end of 20 17, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) issued digital graduation certificates to more than 0/00 graduates of/kloc-0 through the bitcoin blockchain and using the Blockcerts wallet (which can issue "verifiable and tamper-proof" certificates).
The experimental project was supported by the learning machine of the software company, which participated in the research and development of Blockcerts together with the media lab.
The purpose of this is to make students become the real owners of their own files. Learning machine CEO Chris? Chris Jagers said that even if the organization no longer exists one day, people can extract important official information stored in it.
Tbilisi Technology and Business University also used the same method: it cooperated with Emercoin and used a similar blockchain platform, Trusted Diploma. The platform can use blockchain to repair registration data (subjects studied, training quality and scores obtained). From this perspective, in the future, blockchain may help to further promote digital learning methods.