3 Non-financial cryptocurrency Applications Everyone Should Know

In December 2017, all information channels went crazy with
Cryptocurrency poster infant Bitcoin (BTC). Everyone became hooked on the brand new cryptocurrency, seeing it as the precise answer for transaction protection and decentralization. Now that the peak of the hype is somewhat behind us, we can look more intently at how blockchain creates cost beyond cryptocurrencies.

In a previous article, we defined what blockchain is and how it’s pushing us to change our attitude around transactions, consider and freedom. We recognise that non-public blockchains, like Hyperledger, have already established to be fast and effortlessly scalable. Public blockchains, on the opposite hand, are nevertheless slow, do now not scale easily sufficient and dissipate a variety of power, due to the proof-of-work gadget they entail. The long-term awareness is to transport the blockchain in public areas and enforce it in enterprise-degree corporations so that they can also enjoy the excessive degree of trust, traceability and transparency it provides.
Digital identity – Taking ownership of your data.

Cryptocurrency gives a higher diploma of consider to absolutely everyone who questions your identity, even as allowing you to have full manage of your identity facts. Basically, blockchain can store and system virtual identification data, accordingly vouching which you are who you say you are. With this better diploma of believe, time-ingesting and frustrating security-check operations frequently skilled at customs or whilst interacting with banks get tons simpler.

For example, Microsoft and the Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF) are operating on a blockchain answer that lets in you to manage your identification and personal information digitally, whilst improving your privateness and security throughout the bodily and digital world. Instead of granting vast consent to a myriad of apps and services and as a result having your identity facts spread across infinite providers, you may use a secure, encrypted digital hub where you could shop your records and easily manipulate get right of entry to to it.

At the equal time, in positive elements of the world, especially Africa, blockchain solves the hassle of little or no standard device of documentation for citizens and assets. This is a double-edged sword, as lacking an identification doesn’t give you get admission to to medical services, doesn’t allow you to vote, purchase or sell anything. Swiss organisation WISeKey has constructed a Digital Identity Blockchain answer that permits African governments to digitize their land registry and to make sure manage of authenticity.
Medical research – Sharing your medical history for the common good.

The main hassle in medical studies is having access to large quantities of relevant facts. What’s more, sensitive medical facts is commonly off-limits due to privateness constraints. Blockchain, however, comes in available as it lets you anonymously provide your health records for medical research. At all times, you have full manipulate over your facts and identity.

Imagine it as having all of your medical records stored into a medical virtual wallet. Researchers can handiest get right of entry to it together with your permission, and they'll use your facts in their studies without affecting your privacy. It’s constantly as much as you what information you make to be had and to whom.

Physician and computational biologist Dexter Hadley and his crew at the University of California these days constructed a blockchain-based gadget that lets healthy girls and people with breast most cancers anonymously share their mammograms. The researcher’s team objectives at gathering facts from 3 to 5 million US women, who can provide or drop access to their facts through an online portal. The researchers need huge volumes of varied information in an effort to feed their AI algorithms and efficiently educate them in detecting breast most cancers. The larger the data, the more accurate the algorithm.

Blockchain equally permits for broker data exchanges between individuals and organizations, while facilitating payment. For instance, geneticist George Church at Harvard University released Nebula Genomics – a startup that allows people who need their genomes sequenced to attach with organizations that want to purchase get right of entry to to the resulting data. Nebula also lets folks who pay for their own sequencing promote their genetic information. They get paid in virtual tokens that can be exchanged for US dollars.

Energy – Increasing market efficiency.

In the strength sector, blockchain solves numerous problems. On the only hand, blockchain-primarily based smart contracts coupled with clever meters lead to better prediction of power intake patterns. On the alternative hand, in regions still walking in analog ways, clever contracts for energy add a further layer of believe and decrease administration fees for electricity transitions and, implicitly, utility expenses for clients.

Blockchain additionally increases visibility over the power infrastructures permitting entities within the grid to find the demand and surplus of strength.

This way strength devices can harness the extra strength in the network and the distribution flows can be adjusted so that, for instance, regions missing in large-scale energy plant life can advantage. Basically, thru the higher level of believe it creates, blockchain permits entities to be higher aware of the energy deliver-call for ratio and manage it more efficiently.

Since the first blockchain strength transaction in 2016, over 100 energy agencies adopted the blockchain technology, deploying it in forty projects. With $300 million invested in much less than a year, 2017 changed into a turning point in global reputation of blockchain for its potential applications in the electricity sector.

Japanese energy large TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) recently partnered with Ethereum startup Grid+ to expand a platform that allows customers to pre-pay for electricity. TEPCO also invested in UK-based totally blockchain startup Electron so that it will construct a decentralized blockchain platform for electricity transactions, which relies on the modern centralized infrastructure.

Because of the cryptocurrency hype, we regularly miss out on the limitless enhancements that blockchain offers in so many industries. If you want to find out greater blockchain applications,
how supply chains, creative industries, balloting and marketing can gain from blockchain systems, take a look at out the Future Horizons show under proposing QUALITANCE Chief Innovation Officer Mike Parsons and SupplyBlockchain CEO/Founder Sebastian Cochinescu.