It is easy to conclude that the worldwide cryptocurrency business had a difficult year in 2022. It began with the steady decline of bitcoin’s price from its all-time high of roughly $69,000 and finished with the unexpected collapse of crypto exchange FTX and the arrest of its disgraced founder and former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried. In the middle of these events, algorithmic stablecoin TeraUSD crashed, bringing with it crypto hedge firm Three Arrows Capital and crypto lenders Voyager Digital and Celsius.
While 2023 appears to be the year that financial authorities give the crypto sector some guidance in order to assist establish consumer trust, the fact is that cryptocurrencies, including prospective central bank digital currencies, are still a long way off. Are, with far-reaching repercussions beyond their current use cases. The world’s awakening to the disruptive influence of blockchain technology, which underpins it all, is not far off.
We are already seeing how blockchain technology has the potential to disrupt some of the world’s most vital businesses, especially banking and global finance. Blockchain technology is projected to have such an influence on global finance that former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton has stated that its successful adoption is critical to the future of our financial system. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon has also complimented the technology’s influence on financial markets, claiming that it has “far-reaching implications for the global economy.
But what about outside of finance? Could tokens or self-executing contracts ever have a far-reaching influence outside of money? Indeed, I feel the answer is unequivocal.
These are three examples of how blockchain technology is causing global transformation:
Cancer Research
Blockchain technology is assisting researchers in using artificial intelligence to properly forecast the presence of cancer in patient tissue samples.
A recent study from the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom employed a swarm learning system to train an AI algorithm to detect cancer-indicative patterns in photos of patient tissue samples from colon tumours. can be recognised precisely. The researchers utilised Ethereum smart contracts to enable three physically independent computers to update AI model weights at specific periods without needing to go via a centralised authority. “In this setup, the blockchain holds global state information about the model,” the researchers said.
“We have shown that swarm learning can be used in medicine to train independent AI algorithms for any image analysis task,” said study author Phil Quirke. “This means that it is possible to remove the need for data transfer without requiring institutions to give up secure control of their data.”
Additional study has indicated that genomics and big data researchers can benefit from blockchain’s distributed ledger and trustless properties. The Cancer Gene Trust, for example, is being established by the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health collaboration. The Trust stores and distributes de-identified patient data on a blockchain to enable safe clinical data distribution for the benefit of all cancer researchers.
Government
Blockchain technology is assisting governments in the security of their data and the improvement of numerous services.
Estonia’s KSI blockchain, which the tiny Baltic nation has been utilising since 2012 for everything from generating smart ID cards to storing healthcare data, is a frequently cited example. Blockchain technology also aids Estonia’s land title registration system, enabling citizens to claim property rights by building a safe and publicly verifiable record system. Similar blockchain-based land registries currently exist or are being maintained in nations such as Brazil, India, and Russia, among others.
In recent years, the UAE has also been active in blockchain technology. In 2016, it launched the Dubai Blockchain Strategy, an ambitious proposal to use blockchain technology to conduct all government transactions and establish the world’s first “blockchain-powered city”. Under the Emirates Blockchain Strategy 2021, the government set an even more ambitious goal of completing 50% of all projects by 2018. Blockchain technology is being used to facilitate national government transactions.
California stated in January that it will integrate its auto title database onto the Tezos blockchain, allowing drivers to store their car titles as NFTs and expediting title transfers.
Logistics
As the global supply chain becomes more clogged, blockchain technology is assisting logistics businesses in keeping track of goods.
In principle, the distributed ledger of blockchain and the capacity to trace every movement of shipping containers might assist the whole logistics business. Oracle offers Intelligent Track and Trace, a SaaS product that provides enterprises with a pre-built blockchain application to trace shipments from beginning to end.
Oracle blockchain network that is decentralised Chainlink goes a step further, allowing hybrid smart contracts to interface with real-world data and services that are not part of the blockchain network. Chainlink enables blockchain-enabled businesses to access off-chain data sources while retaining blockchain’s security and dependability. This implies that logistics organisations who use one blockchain to track shipments and another for payments will be able to share messages and data across the two blockchains, resulting in more efficient and reliable procedures.
Blockchain dominance appears to be unavoidable in the most, if not all, of the world’s main sectors. Technology will provide more secure, dependable, and efficient systems, and companies should search for opportunities to implement technology whenever possible. Governments should also prioritise technology in order to simplify bureaucratic operations and preserve individuals’ personal information as well as other national data.
Businesses and governments who aggressively use blockchain technology will realise enterprise advantages while leading the road out of Web2.5 and into Web3.
Source: The Forbes Technology Council