Do you own a small business or startup? Willing to make your business smarter with blockchain? Here, you will get several blockchain applications that can help you!
Blockchain came into fame with Bitcoin. According to experts, blockchain is an innovative technology that added transparency, security, and speed to the bitcoin transactions. Moreover, it is an immutable, distributed and decentralized digital ledger.
There has been a rapid rise in the demand of blockchain developers because of the benefits it offers. Blockchain has various applications that can help small businesses to increase their efficiency and productivity. Some of these are explained below:
Smart Contracts
The word ‘smart contract’ was first used in 1993 but it came to popularity in 2013 when the Ethereum project emerged. This project is a decentralized platform that operates various smart contracts.
According to Chris DeRose, “smart contracts are self-automated computer programs that can carry out the terms of any contract”. Smart contracts are basically self-operating contracts in which the agreement between a buyer and a seller is already written in the form of codes.
Distributed Cloud Storage
Another application of blockchain technology can be cloud storage. In a distributed cloud storage, all the users are connected to each over a peer to peer network. Moreover, this network is more secure, faster and less expensive as compared to the conventional data center based cloud storages.
Distributed cloud storage allows a user to store data in a secure as well as decentralized way. It is done with the help of blockchain features like transaction ledgers and hash functions.
Digital Identity
According to statistics, the digital advertising industry loses around $18.5 billion every year. It means there is a $1 ad for fraud on every 3 dollars spent on digital advertising. Hence, it seems that security is really a big concern for all size businesses. Here, the blockchain development companies come into the picture.
According to the founder of Blocgeeks, Ameer Rosic, “Blockchain technologies make tracing and managing digital identities both secure and efficient, resulting in seamless sign-on and reduced fraud”.
In case of the authentication performed with the help of blockchain technology, it is thoroughly checked whether the transaction was signed by the valid private key or not. Moreover, this technology can be quite helpful in various areas like IDs, E residency, birth certificates, passports and online account login.
There are companies like ShoCard which are implementing the blockchain technology to validate the individual’s identity on their mobile device.
Gift Cards and Loyalty Programs
In all the loyalty portals operated by blockchain, the reward points can be deposited by the issuer in a customer crypto wallet. This wallet is available to the customer and he can use this crypto wallet and can spend at any merchant who accepts cryptocurrency in that blockchain network.
Moreover, in such a case, the cardholder will not require logging into the fulfillment website to redeem points for merchandise. Instead of it, reward currency can be used to perform a deal with a merchant that accepts cryptocurrency.
Here, it can assist retailers that provide gift cards and loyalty programs by making the process less expensive and safe by cutting out the middleman. For instance, Gyft Block is a partnership between Gyft and bitcoin API developer Chain. It provides a digital gift card which can be traded on the blockchain’s public ledger.
Networking and IOT
IBM and Samsung have collaborated up for a different concept known as ADEPT. Its full form is Autonomous decentralized peer to peer telemetry. It uses blockchain to offer the backbone of the system. Moreover, it uses a mixture of proof of work and proof of stake to make transactions safe.
With the help of blockchain incorporated with ADEPT, it would act as a public ledger for a large number of devices. From this, the need for a central hub will get eliminated. Also, it will serve as a connector between many devices at low cost.
Since there would not be the requirement of the centralized control system, all of these devices can communicate with each other in order to manage energy, bugs or software updates.
Payments and Money exchanges
This is perhaps the most popular blockchain application. Blockchain allows you to send and receive payments. You might have heard about the bitcoin. This is the application of blockchain in which it is possible to trade this cryptocurrency named bitcoin.
With this technology, you can easily transfer money from one corner of the world to another. And that too almost instantly and with comparatively less fee. The straightforward reason is that there are no middlemen that can slow down the transfer of funds.
It is really quite helpful for those who have remote workers sitting in different corners of the world. There are various companies that have already implemented blockchain technology to transfer funds to anywhere in the world. Some of these companies are Abra, Bitwage and Coinpip.
Supply chain communications
Most of the things that we buy are not the product of a single organization. Actually, there is a long chain of suppliers involved in creating a product. Hence, if any of the components of a product gets damaged, brand value will get hampered. And it will take a lot of time to find out which supplier supplied that specific component which got damaged.
So, here with the help of blockchain technology, a company could offer digital ledger which has permanent and auditable records. These records help stakeholders to know about the state of the product at each step. Hence, it will add more transparency to the business operation.
Wrapping Up
I hope you got a clear idea about all the blockchain applications that can be quite helpful for small businesses to take their growth to the next level. Today no web & software development company can survive without adopting & offering blockchain technology.
AUTHOR BIO
Varun Bhagat is a technology geek and works with PixelCrayons as a Sr. Technology Consultant. He possesses in-depth knowledge of different web development technology and helps the clients to choose the best technology as per their needs.
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