The Internet of Things (IoT) has the power to connect all devices through a cloud-based ecosystem. In the future, it could potentially undergird the infrastructure of smart cities in order to make communications far more streamlined and efficient than they are today. However, a major obstacle for IoT is that it still depends largely on centralized platforms. This can make sensitive data vulnerable to hackers.
Blockchain technology has the potential to fix this problem. As discussed in a previous post, blockchain is a decentralized digital ledger of transactions that records data in a way that prevents hacking and altering of the data. It does this by duplicating transactions and dispersing them to “nodes” across the network.
Blockchain would allow contracts known as “smart contracts” to be completed autonomously in a decentralized manner, creating a web of connected devices that gives users control over their own data.
Unfortunately, there are obstacles preventing a full merger between blockchain and IoT. Currently, all IoT devices that “talk” to each other must be on the same blockchain. Similar to how the internet runs on a vast web of servers, a future IoT will need to rely on a network of blockchains. As such, scalability is a major obstacle to merging IoT and blockchain, as current blockchains have yet to reach this level of maturity.
While there are obstacles, the integration of blockchain and IoT would be revolutionary. It would create a record of every transaction made on the IoT, which cannot be altered, making data far more secure. Additionally, it would streamline the entire supply chain—from manufacturing lines to consumers—giving every stakeholder access to documentation when required. Furthermore, a fully integrated blockchain and IoT will make industries that rely on one another, such as insurance companies and supply chain logistics, interconnected and seamless.
How IoT and Blockchain Can Revolutionize Healthcare and Finance
COVID-19 has created a logistical nightmare for both vaccine distributors and health care workers worldwide. Two of the most common vaccines, Pfizer and Moderna, must be kept at below zero degree temperatures or they will degrade. This vaccine challenge is a primary example of how blockchain and IoT can work in tandem to streamline operations and enhance distribution.
As discussed in a previous post, vaccine manufacturers can place IoT sensors on vaccine packaging or even on individual vials which allow distributors to track and monitor their location and temperature during delivery, and quickly spot and fix problems as they arise. When the vials arrive at vaccination centers, health care workers can scan the packages to get immediate access to important information about the quality of vaccines.
Blockchain and IoT also have the power to revolutionize finance through smart payments. For example, JPMorgan Chase & Co recently piloted blockchain payments between satellites orbiting Earth. As an experiment, the bank worked with a nanosatellite supplier called GOMspace, which gave them the ability to run software on their satellites. The test revealed that blockchain networks can fuel transactions between devices, and that it’s possible to build a marketplace where satellites send data to one another in exchange for money. Such a system, for example, could allow a smart refrigerator connected to the IoT to order food from an e-commerce site when it runs low and give an autonomous vehicle the ability to buy gas.
While obstacles for blockchain and IoT remain, a merger between the two has the potential to radically impact our world.
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With news that vaccines to control the spread of COVID-19 have been developed and approved, the next step will be the enormous undertaking of administering them to the public. For the current vaccines developed by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech to be long-lasting and effective, individuals must take two separate doses three to four weeks apart (the length of time depends on which vaccine is used)—bringing the total to about 15 billion doses.
Blockchain technology, a decentralized digital ledger of transactions that records data in a way that prevents hacking and data altercation, may be able to help medical professionals, manufacturers, distributors, and patients stay on top of these vaccines in a secure manner. Not only can blockchain be used to track vaccines over long distances in order to ensure they are temperature controlled and safe for use upon delivery, it can also help medical professionals and patients maintain vaccination records. This could help patients as they may need to prove to authorities that they are safe to travel or to verify that they can be in an indoor office environment. Blockchain can also be used to solidify immunization records about a patient. This process can ensure a patient is receiving the correct pair of COVID-19 vaccines, which they may also need for verification purposes.
“The two-dose challenge,” said Treshock. “Where you need two doses, they need to be within a set time window, let’s say 30 days, and they need to be from the same manufacturer. So, if your first dose is Pfizer, your second dose has to be Pfizer as well. They aren’t interchangeable. When we start administering this vaccine at scale, it is going to be very challenging coordinating that.”
How Can Blockchain Help Manage Health Data?
Blockchain has the power to transform the healthcare industry. Whereas much of our online data is currently in the hands of private companies like Facebook, blockchain can give individuals control over their personal data. Data collected on the Internet is a kind of virtual representation of every user. However, many individuals have no real ownership over their data, which can create problems when it comes to security, access, monetization, privacy, and advocacy.
Not only is blockchain decentralized, it’s also immutable. This means transactions cannot be changed or undone without approval. Blockchain keeps digital identity safe in a “digital wallet” that gathers and protects all the data, which can include health information. For example, this “digital wallet” could house personal health records or health information captured by a smart watch, and then give an individual control over how that data is used.
Some organizations are already using blockchain to successfully manage health data, including:
Canada’s University Health Network (UHN) created a patient control-and-consent platform designed to make clinical research easier. Created in partnership with IBM, UHN uses blockchain to amass and secure patient data throughout the network. It receives and records consent from each patient in order for their data to be shared with researchers.
MiPasa, an initiative founded by the start-up Hacera, is a platform designed to capture pandemic data on an international scale from the Center for Disease Control, the World Health Organization, licensed private facilities, local public health agencies, and individuals—without identifying them. The platform aggregates data through Hacera’s Unbounded Network, a decentralized blockchain supported by Hyperledger Fabric. It then uses IBM’s blockchain and cloud platforms to stream the data.
The blockchain startup Shivom is developing an international project that gathers and shares virus host data. The platform uses blockchain to actively maintain patient consent, and to securely and privately share genomic information and data analysis with third parties without offering access to patients’ raw genomic data.
Blockchain has the potential to revolutionize health care, but requires a transformation in the rules for defining and assigning data ownership.
Understand Enterprise Blockchain for Your Industry
What other industries can benefit from blockchain technology? Get Enterprise Blockchain for Healthcare, IoT, Energy, and Supply Chain, a five-course program from IEEE, to find out. Developed by leading experts in blockchain technology, this advanced program provides business use cases across key industries and sectors. It’s ideal for managers, professional engineers, and business leaders.
Contact an IEEE Content Specialist to learn more about how this program can benefit your organization.
Goodnough, Abby. Zimmer, Carl. Robbins, Rebecca. Mandavilli, Apoorva. Thomas, Denise Grady Katie. Parker-Pope, Tara. Weiland, Noah. Singer, Natasha, Leonhardt., David, Rabin. Roni Caryn. Bosman, Julie. Abelson, Reed. Pérez-Peña, Richard. (14 December 2020). Answers to Your Questions About the New Covid Vaccines in the U.S. New York Times.
As companies continue to grow, Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) can help supply chain systems grow alongside the companies in order to better keep up with incoming demands. If an organization’s supply chain team need to spend all their time just keeping pace with demand, when will they have the time to think strategically and plan for the future? Learn how blockchain technology can help your company scale.
Transparency
While new companies may be able to track their data by using spreadsheets, the process is often time-consuming and hard to maintain as the company grows. With new partners and channels, data silos can make it difficult to manage your supply chain. Blockchain can help by connecting the data through its decentralized digital ledger, which creates a secure record of all product movements and transactions.
BaaS can benefit companies of various sizes, not just large corporations. This platform allows companies to connect their supply chain system with end-to-end visibility from any device with an internet browser.
Scalability
In order to grow a business, a holistic view is needed to ensure that both demand and growth are met. Blockchain provides this by ensuring companies are able to not only meet current demand but can grow.
Blockchain can provide organizations with greater scalability. Adding nodes as the supply chain expands allows for new channels to easily be added to the distributed ledger. Companies can immediately take these new channels into account when planning.
Data
As companies get busy, they may not have time to think strategically. Key performance indicators (KPIs) may not be reviewed, or they might be limited on data. Real-time data with blockchain technology can help create actionable information. Blockchain-as-a-service offers a digital view of what is happening in an organization’s blockchain at any given point. With the ability to view data at any time, it is easier to be more proactive.
BaaS in Real-Life
How exactly does BaaS look like in the real world? IBM is offering a blockchain platform that lets consumers know where their coffee comes from. In the app, “Thank My Farmer”, users can scan QR codes that shows them the journey of their coffee and supports sustainable farming projects through donations. Starting this March, consumers in the U.S. and Canada will be able to find these QR codes on Folger’s 1850 brand premium single-origin coffee and other well-known brands.
Starbucks is also in the progress of utilizing BaaS to help show consumers their coffee’s journey. Starbucks is working with Microsoft to develop a blockchain-based supply chain tracking system and mobile app that would show customers the journey from coffee bean to cup. No live date has been given for the app.
Prepare for the Future
Enterprise Blockchain for Healthcare, IoT, Energy, and Supply Chain is a new five-course program from IEEE. Developed by leading experts in blockchain technology, this advanced program provides business use cases across key industries and sectors. It’s ideal for managers, professional engineers, and business leaders.
Connect with an IEEE Content Specialist today to learn more about this program and how to get access to it for your organization.
As anyone responsible for supply chain management can tell you, the demand for accountability and tracking at every step of the supply chain just continues to grow. For example, consumers want to know where their vegetables were sourced, how they were grown, handling methods, refrigeration temperatures in transit, how long since they have been harvested, etc. However, that’s only the beginning of the information required of supply chain management professionals.
With increasingly sophisticated tracking and handling of the entire supply chain, both sensitive financial and confidential data can be shared between the supplier and the customer. And that’s where blockchain comes in.
How It Works
First, what is a blockchain? At its core, a blockchain is simply a distributed record-keeping system. Each encrypted transaction record is added to the blockchain, securely linked to the record before it. Because everyone on the blockchain has access to an encrypted copy of the record, it is almost impossible to alter. This greatly enhances the security of records, and it also has massive security implications.
Securing the Supply Chain
David Higgins shares a perfect example of the need for enhanced digital security of the supply chain in his article Supply Chain Meets Blockchain: A Perfect Match. He writes, “Following allegations of nation-states targeting the supply chain at the chip level to embed backdoors into both B2B and consumer technologies, organizations are increasingly embracing blockchain to secure their supply chains and reduce the risk of fraud. The distributed nature of blockchain makes it very well suited to validate every step in the supply chain – including the authenticity of hardware and software.”
Blockchain’s secure nature offers a number of interesting use cases in the supply chain field. A number of industry leaders, including Carrefour, Target, and Panalpina, are exploring blockchain pilot programs to see how the technology can be leveraged for supplier certification, trade document digitization, and more.
Paperless Supply Chain
Another benefit of using blockchain for supply chain is the potential for a completely paperless process. Not only is this process more secure with better data provided at every step, it’s also good for the environment. Samsung recently demonstrated the potential for this type of transaction when they received the very first paperless shipping container ever delivered. This transaction was financed through the blockchain, and every step was tracked.
“The first shipments to use the platform gave us a good insight into the possibilities of large-scale implementation. As cargo recipient, we benefited from real time information and advance availability of digitized cargo documentation. We can re-design our processes more efficiently, enabling us to act based on real-time events and trusted data. Ultimately, this will strengthen our service proposition to customers,” said Robert van der Waal, Deputy President of Samsung SDS EU/CIS.
It is clear that blockchain represents an important future for the supply chain industry. In fact, the global blockchain supply chain market size is projected to reach nearly $10 million by 2025 according to a report published by Global Info Research.
Is Your Organization Ready for Blockchain?
To help your organization better understand blockchain use cases at an enterprise level, IEEE has recently released a 5-course program series called Enterprise Blockchain for Healthcare, IoT, Energy, and Supply Chain. Learn about the importance of blockchain in applications beyond just finance as well as how they may affect your organization.
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The current technologies used in the healthcare industry face limitations in areas security, privacy, and full ecosystem interoperability. Although several challenges must be addressed before any large scale adoption can be attempted, a healthcare blockchain could transform the industry through the secure nature of distributed ledger technology.
A blockchain-powered health information exchange has the potential to improve the challenges providers face, such as cost, with current intermediaries. Blockchain can connect the systems to produce enhanced insights and better assess the quality of care, giving patients a better outcome in the long run.
Promising use cases for blockchain technology in healthcare include:
1. Drug Traceability
One of the top issues in pharmaceuticals today is counterfeit drugs, that can be lethal to patients. Counterfeit drugs are not produced similarly to the real product, meaning they may not treat the intended disease. The difference in ingredients and dosage can lead to side effects that can cause death. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that “16% of counterfeit drugs contain the wrong ingredients, while 17% contain the wrong levels of necessary ingredients”. Furthermore, WHO estimates that “1 in 10 medical products circulating in low- and middle-income countries is either substandard or falsified.”
How can blockchain help? Blockchain technology would improve product tracking as they move along from product production to the consumer. This would make it difficult for counterfeits to come into the marketplace. It would also allow stakeholders and labs to identify the exact location of their drugs should a problem arise.
2. Clinical Trials
It usually takes several years to test the tolerance and effectiveness of a product in a clinical trial. Because the outcome is critical for the future of the drug, falsified results are not uncommon. Additionally, the sheer number of people involved in clinical trials produce considerable amounts of data. This makes it difficult to track and far too easy to make mistakes— whether unintentional or not.
Using blockchain technology in clinical trials would reduce the risk of data fraud. By weeding out studies with seemingly unreliable protocols and results before they’re published, other professionals can focus on replicating more trustworthy studies, thereby facilitating further collaboration in the scientific community.
3. Patient Data Management
The two biggest issues for patient data management are that each patient is unique and sharing patient information amongst the medical community is sensitive and highly regulated. Because what works for one patient may not work for another, access to complete medical records is essential in order to adapt treatment and provide personalized care.
The use of blockchain technology inpatient data management would provide a structure for secure data sharing. Querying the blockchain would allow healthcare stakeholders to determine the location of the desired data without revealing patient identity. One of the main advantages of adopting blockchain in healthcare is that the technology allows individual patients to have full control over who can access his or her medical records. Through a smart contract, the patient defines conditions on when data can be accessed on the blockchain. For example, a patient can select one or more third parties who are able to grant permission to the healthcare provider in case of emergency.
Use Cases Beyond Healthcare
Healthcare isn’t the only industry that can benefit from blockchain technology. Enterprise Blockchain for Healthcare, IoT, Energy, and Supply Chain is a new five-course program coming soon from IEEE. Developed by leading experts in blockchain technology, this advanced program provides business use cases across key industries and sectors. It’s ideal for managers, professional engineers, and business leaders.
Blockchain technology has the ability to disrupt the communications industry with its speed and secutiry. The technology has the ability to improve the following four areas in communications systems:
1. Secure Messaging
People worry about social media platforms keeping their private data private. Blockchain provides the solution by decentralizing data to provide a way for only intended users to access any set of data. New messaging systems have begun to capitalize on this powerful concept.
Gordon Yilin Lu, Deputy Chairman of Instanza Inc. and owner of SOMA Messenger, explains, “Blockchain technology provides a secure solution to these communication problems faced by large platforms because information is only released with private keys. That’s why SOMA is currently integrating blockchain technology to provide encrypted messaging and a crypto wallet designed to reward users for their engagement, and at the same time protect the privacy and contribution of users.”
2. Enterprise-level Communications
TOP Network is a startup that’s building the world’s first decentralized cloud communication network on the blockchain. It allows individuals and organizations to contribute their idle resources (such as a spare server in a data center) to the network, and receive rewards in return for their contribution. Resource and service providers join the network transparently via blockchain technology, which enables the company to build in wider coverage and higher-quality services at lower prices, and also offers substantially more robust security.
According to Steve Wei, CEO of TOP Network, “When it comes to data security in the communication sector, blockchain technology can raise the bar higher. On a blockchain-version Facebook, users will be more comfortable posting on their timelines as no centralized organization can control their information. Because the data decentralized in nodes across the entire network, it is virtually impossible for hackers to tamper with data or governments to censor contents.”
Through a decentralized cloud communication network, blockchain can also create seamless integrations between applications. This greatly reduces the complexity of communication.
Wei explains that blockchain can break the boundaries between different social communication apps that wouldn’t otherwise work together. He says, “TOP Network, for instance, creates a standard communication protocol to make all the decentralized apps in its ecosystem interoperable. The interoperability realized with blockchain can facilitate Internet of Things, which requires the seamless connection of various apps and devices.”
3. Secure VoIP
In addition to security and speed, communications providers and consumers also want cost effectiveness. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), which is already a vastly cheaper option than customary telephony, has a genuine future as a decentralized network system.
Blockchain technology removes the centralized access point used in current VoIP solutions. It instead routes the calling party’s signal to a receiving number and replaces it with a distributed network shared by all network users. This eliminates any routing cost, since all routes are already established by the distributed ledger. This also maintains security and maximizes speed of data transfer.
4. CDNs
Blockchain is creating a helpful solution for content delivery networks (CDNs). CDNs provide a critical service for global information transfer on the internet, as well as an intrinsic cost for data transfer and a weak point of security risk. Blockchain provides a way to optimize unused bandwidth from servers worldwide. It links them together into a complex nest of servers which are able to move data seamlessly throughout the world. Because the data is all distributed and can only be accessed via private keys, the system also provides maximal security for users.
Even from a reliability perspective, blockchain is solving CDN-related issues. As blockchain decentralizes points of bandwidth, any single server crash or service interruption can be almost instantly healed by rerouting through the many thousands of other points on the network.
Beyond Communication
The technology behind Bitcoin continues to impact and improve a variety of industries. Prepare for the blockchain revolution in your industry by making sure you understand what blockchain is and what it can do. Discover blockchain applications that make sense for your industry with Introduction to Blockchain Technology, a three-course training program designed to help you make sense of this technology. Connect with an IEEE Content Specialist and receive a custom quote for your organization today.
Blockchain technology could allow people to take back control of their personal data.
How secure do you feel about divulging private information online? If you’re like most, sharing that information can leave you feeling a bit unsettled. Especially in the wake of Facebook’s recent privacy scandals.
With the help of uncensorable communication, personal cloud servers, and private data streaming, along with a few startup organizations, blockchain could revolutionize the way we communicate.
Uncensorable
According to Freedom House, an independent watchdog group, in 2018 internet freedom declined for the eighth consecutive year.
An increasing number of governments are tightening control over citizen internet activities, monitoring and censoring voices on social media. From there, anything is possible, including the ability for governments to use social media to orchestrate influence campaigns and manipulate society.
Censorship is far more difficult to implement in a decentralized world.
“Blockchain is decentralized, transparent and open, but you can move encrypted data in a manner that is accountable,” says Mick Hagen, founder and CEO of Mainframe, a privacy platform company seeking to build some secure communications. “While the decentralized structure relies on hundreds, or even thousands of verifiers, in some ways it is much more private.”
Personalization
Another form of security, personal cloud servers allow individuals to own their own “digital land” and register it under one of hundreds of possible communities. This makes it easier for people to find friends who are not using the same hashtags or in the same friend group in social networks.
Incentive mechanisms will motivate users to move to new platforms and create content there. Incentive mechanisms reward online contributors directly, unlike social media networks that harvest data from users while generating advertising revenue.
Prepare for the Blockchain Revolution
Blockchain has the potential to impact a variety of industries, from communications to real estate, healthcare, and more. To prepare for the revolution, make sure you understand what blockchain is and what it can do. IEEE’s Introduction to Blockchain Technology is a three-course training program to help you make sense of the technology and discover what it can do for your industry. Order this program for your company today.
Removing fraud and trust from the equation, blockchain technology verifies, records and coordinates transactions autonomously without the need for third parties. It implies the role of intermediaries will diminish, which has a critical impact on legacy market players, whose business model is often based on some role in intermediation.
Thanks to the blockchain, new and as yet unimagined ways of doing business are in our very near future. Here are just five business sectors on the path to disruption.
Energy
Flexible, efficient and secure, the blockchain will fuel the transition to a new distributed energy model where consumers become prosumers – producing electricity via solar panels and battery storage. New types of collaboration will replace intermediaries and allow direct peer-to-peer trading transactions. The only issue when it comes to replacing intermediaries is the question of who owns the liability when a transaction fails.
Supply Chain
The transparency and automated administrative operations of blockchain-based supply chains would eliminate an entire layer of complexity that bring about points of failure. Combined with the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and more, blockchain will allow the physical flow of goods to be more effectively orchestrated and synced with information and financial flows.
Internet of Things
Blockchains provide an automatic go-to registry for ownership and maintenance status for connected devices within the IoT. These “smart” devices are embedded with sensors that transmit and exchange data with the connected blockchain at all times in order to better understand your habits and patterns, and provide for a smarter living experience. Blockchain technology allows the sensors to handle all the information through AI and distributed computing, all while keeping the information secure and functional.
Finance
Over the last decade, the financial services industry has suffered a major blow to its public image. The security, dependability and efficiency of the blockchain has the ability to significantly improve it. With its ability to make digital records that are incorruptible, blockchain technology has the ability to upend legacy institutions, including payments, lending, and capital markets. The blockchain will power the automation of financial services and processes, allowing traditional businesses to replace aging back-end systems and radically increase efficiency. This technology allows legacy firms to create new revenue models while lowering costs by automating manual processes, presenting untold opportunities.
Healthcare
In addition to maintaining healthcare records and linking healthcare providers to promote record sharing, the blockchain could also track things that aren’t currently tracked at all, like yours and your parents’ genome, your nutrition, your fitness data, what your mother’s pregnancy was like, your microbiome and more. All of these things are important to maximizing health over long periods of time. The blockchain allows individuals to own their own data and even profit from it by selling it to health research studies or drug discovery.
How Could Blockchain Impact Your Industry?
Learn more from business cases for disruption across various sectors that could correlate to yours. Pre-register now for Advanced Blockchain for Enterprise, a two-day virtual event taking place December 4-5, 2018. This engaging, interactive event consists of two one-hour sessions led by blockchain expert, Steve Derezinski, covering advanced blockchain concepts and applications for managers, engineers and leaders. You’ll learn the technical aspects of using this in-demand technology to impact your bottom line for the better.
Among the many challenges that blockchain technology is poised to solve, is ending poverty.
While technological advancements have significantly reduced global poverty over the past century, it is still not gone. There are still more than 1.3 billion people in the world living in extreme poverty (defined as having less than $1.25 to spend each day).
General causes for poverty include lack of access to banking facilities and lack of legal property ownership. Both of which are major issues in developing countries and can be solved with blockchain technology.
Economic Identity
According to the World Bank’s global financial index, there are about 2.5 billion unbanked or underbanked individuals across the globe, which represents a quarter of the world’s population. Due to the lack of proper identification or lack of credit history, people are unable to open bank accounts.
Additionally, many organizations that try to help the poor operate in silos, running their own databases. A centralized system would allow people in need to build up information and credit history to improve their situation.
Blockchain-powered digital identity could be used across organizations and eventually even across borders to help those who don’t have proper identification. Blockchain could create access to financial systems and transactions to secure potentially life-changing resources.
Property Rights
Many developing countries don’t have a working system of tracking property rights, or they are fragile and incomplete. Around the world, land registries are inefficient and unreliable, or even alarmingly corrupt.
“Blockchain is a powerful tool to solve these structural issues, which are some of the principal causes of poverty and conflict,” says world-renowned Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto Polar. He believes that property ownership rights are vital for a strong market economy. Poverty is difficult to overcome without an information framework that records ownership of property and other economic information.
Blockchain-based land registries could give many of the world’s poorest people their first real asset. This allows something safe to invest in and will improve their properties, thus helping to lift themselves out of poverty. Using blockchain technology for property ownership registration protects the rights of the owner in the case of theft. It also enables easy resolve of disputes, prevents fraud and makes correct transfer of ownership after sale possible. Once owners have been able to document ownership, they can prove their existence, in turn increasing access to banking facilities. Blockchain-based land registries have already started up in Bermuda, Brazil, Georgia, Ghana, Honduras, India, Russia and Rwanda.
There is a veritably deafening buzz around blockchain at the moment as it’s the technology du jour. And rightfully so, as it ticks a lot of boxes: it’s decentralized, anonymous, and immutable. It also promises security through truth and transparency.
Amid the excitement about it, brands are rushing to embrace the ledger technology. Upon announcing that they’re working with, or will soon incorporate, blockchain technologies, their stock price skyrockets.
The Blockchain Bounce Phenomenon
This is called blockchain bounce.
Don’t believe us? Take Overstock, for example, whose share price rose +200% post-announcement of a loyalty plan built on blockchain.
Or restaurants like Chanticleer Holdings (whose brands include American Burger Co. and Little Big Burger) and Hooter’s. Both stocks became hot simply because of their association with blockchain.
It also happened to Kodak recently, when it partnered with WENN Digital to launch a blockchain-powered image rights platform, called KODAKOne. Shares of Eastman Kodak’s stock surged more than 30% on the announcement, closing at $6.80.
As the New York Times noted, these bold gambles have had mixed reactions among investors: some are excited, others confused, with a majority curious about “wading into dubious business deals” in search of instant growth through blockchain bounce.
Are businesses that attach themselves to blockchain merely a fad? Or will utilizing blockchain to provide the building blocks for a company’s future have an Amazon-like effect, as Starbucks Chairman Howard Shultz predicts? Could the blockchain bounce make a difference for your company? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Coming Soon: IEEE Introduction to Blockchain Technology
It’s clear blockchain isn’t going away anytime soon. Which is why it’s in your business’ best interests to learn as much as possible, as soon as possible, about it. To make sense of the recent blockchain revolution, you’ve got to understand what a blockchain really is and what it’s capable of doing. The best place to start is with the new IEEE Introduction to Blockchain Technology 3-course program. Pre-order for your company now and save.
Removing fraud and trust from the equation, blockchain technology verifies, records and coordinates transactions autonomously without the need for third parties. It implies the role of intermediaries will diminish, which has a critical impact on legacy market players, whose business model is often based on some role in intermediation.
