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Is the blockchain technology bringing around a real disruption?
11.12.2019

Blockchain, that was introduced in the late 2000s, has evolved quite dynamically over the recent years. It has found application in various sectors, from healthcare to retail and, obviously, banking, transforming the way data and transactions are being processed. The technology has a great potential to optimize business operations across industries and improve fraud prevention measures, which is why its adoption is predicted to increase in the following years. As estimated by Global Market Insights Inc., in 2025, global blockchain technology market is expected to be worth circa US$25 billion.

Traditional banking industry players and newly emerged service providers are extensively experimenting with blockchain in order to explore its full potential and move away from paper-consuming financial processes towards a fully digitalized format. Besides great optimization, blockchain ensures secure storage and access to information to all concerned entities.

We live in the times when financial scams are detected on a constant basis by financial institutions. Fraudsters and hackers are finding ways to manipulate customer data, bypassing all existing control levels. A survey by KPMG has estimated that 50% of the surveyed institutions have experienced a rise in both total external fraud value and volume. Blockchain has full potential to become an effective solution to an issue of such scale. Smart contracts, which are an essential part of the technology, can support the secure storage of digital information of any kind and maximize the transparency of transactions executed.

Despite the widely popular opinion that blockchain can only be useful in the financial industry, it can also find application in the transportation & logistics sector, tackling the issues that have been persistently causing inefficiencies in the industry for years now. The disruptive power of blockchain here mainly refers to increasing transparency levels of all processes that concern documentation and transactions. This way global supply chains could be greatly optimized through improved coordination and elimination of need for physical paperwork. In addition, all the customs clearance processes would become faster and much more efficient.

Unlike big tech players that focus on blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) development, blockchain startups are rather interested in applying the existing capabilities of the technology. These highly focused efforts will also contribute to the blockchain industry disruption in the upcoming years. Future trends’ direction will be increasingly aimed at the exploration of the technology’s potential in military & defense, as well as healthcare sectors. As an example, the Chinese military has recently declared the launch of a token reward system for soldiers, which is supposed to encourage positive performance dynamics. For what concerns healthcare, blockchain can empower the industry’s ecosystem through increasing the interoperability of patients’ data, while also maximizing security and privacy.