While blockchain is typically associated with crypto-assets and trading, it also offers significant benefits to businesses across multiple sectors. This extends far beyond the hype associated with crypto-assets and trading as blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionise how businesses operate, and here are some of the benefits of blockchain in business.
Speaking at the recent Blockchain in Business conference in Sydney, Eli Afram, Creator of AnonSurvey, said the end goal is for the majority of businesses to be on the blockchain. ‘In the same way that businesses operate on the internet today, in the future businesses will operate on the blockchain,’ he said.
Afram said that this is the logical conclusion based on several things, including:
- Blockchains offer 100% uptime;
- Blockchains offer complete data integrity;
- The technology is highly secure;
- They act in a completely transparent manner.
Bitcoin is more transparent than your bank
‘Bitcoin, which was the first blockchain in existence, is always up and running and you can transact on it at any time. Of course, in the future, businesses also want to be running all the time,’ Afram said.
Another significant benefit of blockchain technology is its security and transparency, Afram said. Since each participant has a copy of the ledger, there is no need for a central authority to verify transactions. This means that every transaction is transparent and can be tracked from start to finish. This level of transparency increases trust between parties, reduces the risk of disputes, and promotes accountability.
‘The fact that anyone can look at the ledger and anyone can audit the ledger means Bitcoin is more transparent than your local bank. In the early days, people thought the technology was anonymous, but every transaction on that ledger is traceable to the original genesis of that token.’
Blockchain is more than just a buzzword
While the benefits of the technology are clear, Afram noted that many businesses have co-opted ‘blockchain’ as a buzzword without truly understanding the technology and its use cases.
‘Very few understand the technology. Developers and technical people in the space also haven’t done right by businesses. Things are not helped by the wild casino markets and unregulated exchanges. It paints a bad picture and people want to move away from that and are not interested (in that segment).’
Afram explained that blockchain is fundamentally a public database which incorporates a time-stamped ledger that allows anyone to read/write from it. However, no one can manipulate its contents. ‘Now that automatically provides so many different use cases for so many different people,’ Afram said.
The sectors which are set to benefit the most
‘When you have that protection at the database level, it provides so much opportunity, and the opportunities are quite endless,’ Afram said. However, he noted that there are several sectors which are likely to benefit from this technology more than others, including:
- Finance;
- Supply chain and logistics;
- Healthcare;
- E-Voting;
- Property and real estate;
- Manufacturing;
- Cybersecurity;
- Advertising;
- Social media.
‘If businesses can get all of these advantages by utilising an online database that is publicly verifiable, then imagine the new internet using this. Imagine unhackable websites or immutable applications that don’t break as often. Blockchain has been about people promising the world, but now we are starting to see genuine use cases.’