How blockchain technology is changing the world

Founder of DLT Labspioneering blockchain enterprise solutions via distributed application architecture development and integration.

We see the stories every day. The feds indict 21 people in a global encryption money laundering ring. FTX not only filed for bankruptcy, but hackers are said to have stolen customer funds. Cryptocurrency investors have lost more than $2 trillion in the past year.

Given such headlines, one could be forgiven for viewing cryptocurrency and cryptocurrency trading negatively. Also, the sheer amount of energy required for bitcoin mining may also heighten one’s skepticism, given the real impact of climate change. But one should remember that cryptocurrency only represents a small subset of distributed ledger technology (DLT). As such, people, businesses, and governments must be extremely careful about dismissing the enormous potential that blockchain offers to humanity as a whole.

What is Blockchain?

At its most basic, blockchain is about how both digital and real assets move from one person or place to the next without the need for an expensive, intrusive third party to facilitate the process. While the creation of distributed ledger technologies that make blockchain work was first applied to the movement of money, giving rise to cryptocurrency, blockchain can be used for any asset by creating a digital copy of a real object and performing the necessary action in real time .

How Blockchain Benefits Society

The world has already benefited greatly from the power and elegance of blockchain. For example, at the height of the pandemic, with millions of people in desperate need of effective Covid-19 vaccines, our company created an intelligent vaccine tracking system using blockchain to ensure frictionless distribution of life-saving vaccinations across the globe under extreme temperature control. This not only ensured that vaccines reached the people who needed them around the world in record time, but reduced the cost that governments had to pay pharmaceutical companies to purchase them since the blockchain tracking system helped limit the number of broken vaccines that had to be thrown away. due to exposure to excessive heat or cold.

Consumers have also benefited from enterprise blockchain as it helps businesses streamline processes and operations, efficiencies that are ultimately passed on to consumers. One of the biggest challenges resulting from the pandemic was disrupted supply chains, which even today continue to lead to shortages and rising costs for essential products such as milk, toilet paper and baby formula. DLT technologies are also used to protect consumer health by tracking where products and other foods come from to improve food safety. In fact, 12 of the largest global food companies have already adopted blockchain to track food in the world, including Walmart, Nestle, Unilever, Tyson Food, Driscoll’s and Dole.

Blockchain is also being used to improve the tourism industry. For example, Australian-based Webjet uses its blockchain platform to avoid inaccurate or lost hotel bookings. This provides more transparency for customers and greater accountability on behalf of hotels.

And identity management is no stranger to blockchain-based solutions. In a time and place where data and privacy are so important to users, blockchain allows them to control their personal information through a distributed trust model. We are slowly starting to see an influx of blockchain-based identity management startups flooding the sector, with the blockchain identity management market projected to reach nearly $18 billion by 2030.

While it’s still too early to know the full impact of the cryptocurrency meltdown, educating ourselves about how new technologies like blockchain work, their benefits, and the potential for abuse remains our best line of defense. It is also the best way for us to identify and unlock the full potential of distributed ledger technology to solve some of today’s most complex problems.

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