When we hear the term BLOCKCHAIN, a lot of us associate it with only cryptocurrencies “bitcoin, electroneum, ethereum and so on.” However, it’s pertinent to know that blockchain is the facilitator of the bitcoin.

Bitcoin has faced a lot of backlash in the society because of its inscrutable founders and its volatile and skittish valuation swings. Our focus, however, is fixated on the blockchain platform; it’s the blockchain platform that wields the innovative power to transform our economy and society for good.

In fact, the core structures of our society and economy will be reshaped by the blockchain platform with the potential it possesses. Without much ado, let’s succinctly talk about the blockchain platform for a more precise understanding.

The blockchain platform is a database that’s distributed and specially designed to keep tabs on assets and unclog or make transactions seamless.

This innovation might probably not sound like rocket science to an open mind, but the truth is, for years, government, business owners, consumers, even financial institutions have been having a hard time facilitating a transaction in the most seamless ways possible not to talk of keeping tracks of assets.

Even in this jet age, the campaign to tackle forgeries and scams have been abortive or proven futile, the fee charged for processing a transaction is very costly and exorbitant to bear for a buyer or a seller. The fee charged on transactions by financial institutions and credit card companies are bizarre.

Even when we turn a blind eye to these high transaction fees, we still whine and throw tantrums about why verifications and executions of transactions take forever, and to be honest, these problems are beyond the control of the banks.

When we consolidate the drawbacks of the traditional and conventional way of business and transaction processing, we’ll see that our businesses can be affected or our profits dwindle because of these unhealthy inefficiencies.

These inefficiencies can bring about a defected growth in our economy, the blockchain, however, has the power and capabilities to turn the table around and eliminate these rudimental issues.

It was deduced by the HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEWS that blockchain is more or less a conquering technology; the blockchain is a sort of platform that can overturn an industry for the greater good.

Blockchain will be a game changer

Remember how Netflix changed the entertainment industry and gave cinemas and cassettes a hot chase? Remember how the mp3 transformed the music industry? Remember how the world wide web ousted the TCP/IP? Do you believe me now when I say that blockchain can reshape our economy and society?

Although these old techs were foundational inventions that paved ways for the likes of the mp3, online video streaming, etc., they’ve outlived their times.

So in a nutshell, blockchain will pave a new way of recording, executing and verifying transactions overnight, as it’s going to oust the traditional method.

The usage of blockchain will sluggishly but steadily gain love from users until it’s predominantly and fashionably used amongst all strata’s and echelons, thereby being the norms by which transactions are to be carried out.

The blockchain platform will influence the way the markets and trades are to be carried out in the foreseeable future, even though the immediate effects of the blockchain platform are not felt, for the time being, it’s lucid that there’s a great connection of how the blockchain platform can improve existing systems.

A majority of big tech companies including apex financial institutions are testing various ways in which the blockchain can be fully harnessed, examples of these companies include bill gates Microsoft, IBM, Goldman Sachs, visa, Citi group, the New York stock exchange, national association of securities dealers automated quotations e.t.c.

Demystifying the goodness of blockchain

• Low transfer and interest fees: the blockchain technology is maintained by its users, thereby eliminating the use of mediators, which in turn drastically reduces the price of fees attached to financial transactions.
• The platform is very secure and trustworthy: since the mechanism at which the blockchain operates is decentralized, it suffices to say such mode of operation encourages a breed of trust; another principal advantage of blockchain is the removal or elimination of much dependability on third parties.

An institution known as the Brookings has juxtaposed a lot of scenarios, where they conclusively believed that the elimination of the necessity for third parties would result in a much valuable transaction.

With the blockchain technology, transactions will be irreversible, and operations can be traced automatically.

• Blockchain gives room for transparency and openness: every Tom, dick and harry can gain access to the ledgers of the blockchain, it’s an open ledger. Business algorithms based on the design of the blockchain platform tends to be translucent and can be easily seen by just anybody.

All the trade inflows and outflows will be revealed.

• The blockchain is efficient regarding data recall: a bad power surge or power glitch can’t bring about a loss of information or data, if the power supply suddenly trips off, the on-going data that’s being processed won’t be lost. So if you mistakenly shut down the computer system, blockchain has got your back.
• The blockchain platform has the power to integrate the digital world with the physical world: be it an intangible asset or a tangible asset, blockchain has a way of representing almost any sort of asset. The owners of such asset will be separately identified.

There’ll be no room for counterfeiting since there’re little or no chances of deceptions.

 

Blockchain in different sectors of the economy

The healthcare sector: the blockchain platform can be utilized in the healthcare industry, for the management and alignment of patient’s records and personal data across hospitals, doctors, insurers, and pharmacies.

The systems encryptions and privacy permissions can be designed in such a way that it adheres to the standards and upholds of regulatory bodies such as the HIPAA.

According to IBM, over 15% of healthcare providers are expected to have a commercial blockchain solution this year. The blockchain platform is going to be a game changer; it has the ability to transform not just a single industry, but all the industries, especially the way business is being carried out.

When IBM interviewed healthcare directors”about 200 of them,” 16% of them were expected to run their labs and hospitals on the blockchain platform. Some of the major players that’ll be adopting the blockchain platform are market markers, industry groups, and regulators.

With the blockchain platform in place, the healthcare sector stands to benefit the followings:

• Data will be easily shared between providers of healthcare
• The probabilities of diagnoses will be high and accurate
• Treatments will be more efficient and efficient
• The healthcare organizations will have an increased ability to deliver a low-cost service
• The blockchain platform will make it easier for different stakeholders in the value chain of the healthcare sector to share unlimited access to their networks, without having to compromise data integrity and security
• The blockchain allows stakeholders in the health sector to track changes made in a data
• The blockchain platform makes it very easy and convenient to track a drug as it’s conveyed from a producer to a patient
• The blockchain platform eliminates all routes to produce counterfeit medicines, because, along with the supply chain, blockchain increases the effectiveness of the way drugs are being tracked and traced.

The platform offers a frictionless connectivity, authorization to gain access to any healthcare data can be done electronically, and smart contracts are what contribute to the strength of the blockchain platform.

The blockchains transaction segments give way for instant access to a diverse set of anonymous, standardized and unidentifiable patient’s information. The blockchain makes it possible for healthcare centers to run on a much lower administrative cost, because of its transparent and automated mechanism.

The digital infrastructure of the healthcare sector is on the brink of disruption, the security, and interoperability that’s needed isn’t fully supported by the current system, to optimally utilize the medical data obtained from patients, interoperability of data and portability of data between two or more systems is a must.

In the entertainment industry: blockchain was commended for its remarkable way of handling business transactions; however, this striking technology can do a lot more.

We’ve discussed in the past how NEO, ethereum and other types of decentralized ledgers can bring good fortunes in the nearest future, by enabling application developers and builders to build unique platforms that’ll sprout the media content sharing industry.

Asides cryptocurrencies, ethereum enables its users to maintain create and execute smart contracts that are all controlled in a specific decentralized pattern through the blockchain platform. What’s more thrilling is the way the blockchain platform synchronizes with other industries; let’s take the entertainment industry as a case study.

The blockchain platform can completely change the way we consume and distribute musical contents. Let’s have a look at some core ways which the blockchain platform can significantly revolutionize the music industry.

Distribution and access: for a long time there has always been an issue of who owns the content and who should have access to such material. Take for example a book purchased at a book mart, when this book is being purchased, is it only the copy you purchased, or you own the contents?

When you purchase a song on iTunes platform, were you given exclusive rights to share the songs on other blogs or website or you’re only given the rights to play the song to your listening?

Now let’s look at music subscription services, where you pay to be able to access the service or platform whenever you wish to play music, but without being on that very platform, there is little or nothing you could do to listen or download the song outside of that platform.

A startup known by the name OPUS, powered by ethereum is positioning itself as one of the world’s pioneers for a decentralized mp3 platform. OPUS is determined to eliminate all the obstacles and hindrances in the streaming and entertainment industry.

According to OPUS’s blueprint, the protocol and infrastructure levels, where they’ll be issues of mp3 sharing and ownership are where OPUS is going to focus its energy on solving.

In a fully decentralized pattern, OPUS will be able to dish out millions of mp3 files within minutes, but to do so; it has to rely on the powers of the IPFS-decentralized interplanetary file system or by leveraging ethereum.

Technically speaking, what OPUS is going to be doing is encryption of mp3 files and storing this mp3 data permanently through the swarms of the IPFS. With the help of smart contracts, you’ll be able to listen to musical contents which will contain the hash files and decryption keys.

By the medium of these smart contracts, creators of music will be directly and handsomely compensated by end users. These technical benefits are meritorious enough and can significantly facilitate the way multimedia files are being utilized and shared online.

It’s a fundamental and natural pattern, store the multimedia content permanently on the blockchain platform and encrypt the contents for protective access, where only the users who are authorized to have access to the content will have the decryption keys.

In addition to this, OPUS is on the verge of drastically transforming the commercial model of music. OPUS isn’t going to have a stake in the earning or income of artists or music creators; additionally, playlist makers who’re responsible for diverting rich traffic to the works of an artist are going to be highly compensated.

You’ll be wondering where OPUS is going to get their own earning from, well, currently, OPUS has the backings of angel investments, and they have rolled out a token sale which we popularly refer to as crowd sale or ICO – initial coin offerings.

Through this, OPUS aims at realizing sufficient capital which will be exchanged for OPT, the OPT in question are a particular kind of cryptocurrency tokens which we’ll be using to buy music.

Global distribution: do you think with the emergence of cloud-based service providing companies such as Netflix and Spotify you can seamlessly gain access to any multimedia content anytime and anywhere you are? Well, sorry to burst your bubbles, but the answer is a capital “NO.”

The reasons are not far-fetched; there’re still some certain restrictions and limitations which arises as a result of geographical problems.

Due to some legal impediments and constraints such as a copyright restriction, a majority of content publishers will be deterred from distributing their crafts to big countries, thereby forestalling the global accessibility of these contents.

With this happening, certain regions or countries will enjoy the benefit of having access to a particular movie, music or book while other regions or countries won’t have access to same content. However, it’ll be unfair to blame the streaming platforms, because more often than not, the hands of these platforms are tied, especially when there’s a conflict of interest.

Fortunately, the blockchain can eliminate such obstacles; no entity can solely deny users access to multimedia contents since the blockchain is an open, distributed and decentralized ledger.

Another startup which is known as DECENT, a recently launched streaming platform that gives enough room for publishers and creator of artistic contents to distribute their work internationally via DECENT’s secure, auditable, encrypted and decentralized platform.

DECENT aims to clear the essence of the dependability of intermediaries, thus, creating room for end users to directly have access to files from the source of the data itself, which are the publishers.

In a nutshell, DECENT is stylishly decentralizing the way digital contents are being shared amongst users while giving publishers maximum protection on copyrights. The startup recently issued their initial coin offering – ICO, sometime around last year, which raised a whopping sum of $4,000,000.

Commercial feasibility: in the distribution of creative works, one question remains unanswered, and that is a question of whether or not the distribution of creative work is commercially feasible. This scenario tends to be a headache for struggling and independent artist.

Independent artists who don’t have exclusive control in overseeing their work, let’s take Spotify as a case study, platforms such as Spotify get at least an estimated cut of 70 percent of whatever amount you pay for the purchase of a music on their platform.

If Spotify is cutting an estimated value of almost 70 percent from the total amount paid by consumers, then you can imagine how much will reach the hands of the copyright holder or the musicians themselves, PENNIES!

Even though megastars such as Kanye West might have a lot of downloads, it’s still going to be a pain in the head to lose much junk of his potential income to Spotify, not after all the hard work, sleepless nights and efforts dedicated to seeing his music conceptualize.

This is where blockchain comes in to save the day; blockchain will cut the likes of Spotify who are ripping these musicians off and connect the end users or customers directly to the musicians, thus, allowing the musicians to earn a reasonable amount of money from their labor.

A few years ago, there was a collaboration between UJO and Imogene Heap, and this alliance was formed for the sole purpose of delivering mp3 files to consumers and fans alike while accepting payments in the form of crypto.

Seeing the potential in this remarkable idea, the concept is currently being pursued by coextensive startup such as MYCELIA which is surprisingly owned by HEAP.

A fight against piracy: be it music or movie, the entertainment industry as a whole is continuously battling piracy, theft is a cost factor to tackle, it costs the movie studios, law enforcement agencies, and even distributors a lot of money to curb piracy.

As we all know it that a movie is a consolidation of titles and copyrights, which stretches through designs, screenplays, technical works, derivatives works from books, merchandise, licensing work from books and so on.

A startup known as CUSTOS MEDIA makes it their primary objective to keep track of intangible assets such as eBooks, movies, music and other Medias via blockchain through its special IMT “imperceptible watermarking techniques.”

Managing digital and asset rights: in this phase, we’ll be targeting tinsel town, an innovative technology such as blockchain can disrupt the multibillion-dollar film industry. Currently, we can say the bargaining power of the film industry is highly centralized with the big shots such as HOLLYWOOD, DISNEY and so on.

Movie production as you see it is often complicated with legal jargons, such that people involved in the movie production ends up not getting a fair share of the cake.

To cross out this ineffectiveness, a startup known as 21 Million Projects has made it their primary goal to scatter the centralization of movie production, thus facilitating locations, scouting of talents and crew from all over.

Unbiased transparency will enable everybody involved in the production process of the movie to have an idea of where the earning from the box office and productions are diverted.

Most importantly, this startup is dedicated to enriching the medium at which digital rights are being managed, ensuring that stakeholders and film producers who have a share or contribution will be adequately compensated under smart contracts.

After raising a staggering sum of $7,500,000 in its ICO – initial coin offering, a startup known as SingularDTV has been dedicated to fight and crush centralization in the entertainment industry.