Did you know that, according to Tech Jury, the revenue that the worldwide blockchain technology market is expected to change? By 2024, experts predict the value to be $20 billion. Additionally, by the end of 2020, 60 percent of CIOs were just about to complete an integration of blockchain.
Specifically, they were about to integrate it into the infrastructure they had.
Considering just how quickly blockchain technology is growing, blockchain trends may be interesting to learn about.
After all, you could make quite a lot of money if you invested in a blockchain technology company that was about to take off.
We aren’t saying you’ll be Barry Silbert or Michael Saylor rich, but you can still do pretty well making the right blockchain investments. However, if you don’t know what the trends are in the industry, it can be stressful to know how to invest.
Fortunately, this article will review the latest blockchain trends and what they mean. Read on to learn more.
What Is Blockchain Technology
Before we go into the latest blockchain trends, we’ll first explain what blockchain technology is. This way, you can understand all the different trends we cover. Basically, a blockchain is a distributed database shared by a network of computers.
Blockchain technology is so helpful because it’s a database that stores data in a specific way. First of all, it holds the information electronically. Second, the information it stores exist in digital format.
Blockchain technology is most known for its use in the cryptocurrency industry. As you can imagine, storing digitally-formatted information electronically is quite useful in this industry.
Blockchain technology is helpful in more ways than one. Blockchain technology makes it possible to maintain a record of transactions.
For this reason, there are many trends regarding how we use blockchain technology. We’ll review those trends in the next section.
The Latest Blockchain Trends & What They Mean
Now that we’ve reviewed what blockchain technology is, we’ll review the latest blockchain trends and what they mean. These trends include blockchain use in the supply chain, smart contracts with blockchain, and more.
Blockchain Use & Supply
Because of how efficient blockchain technology is in storing data, one of the industries where its use is trending most is the supply chain industry. Why is this? As globalization increases, distribution processes have become more complex than ever.
So, when it comes to supply chain management, there are many new challenges.
However, blockchain adoption in the industry makes things a little less complicated. With blockchain technology, it’s possible to have more automation and transparency in processes within the supply chain industry.
These solutions can benefit the industry on a global scale. But what does this look like in practice? We’ll now review an example of blockchain technology’s use within the supply chain industry to decrypt this trend.
Use For Covid-19 Vaccine Distribution
Because COVID-19 vaccines have some tricky requirements, they have presented new global challenges to the supply chain industry. For one thing, there’s a limited supply of these vaccines. Additionally, they require refrigeration.
Logistically, this makes distributing the vaccinations globally in an effective way quite complicated.
As a result of this logistical challenge, there are two hospitals in the UK that have started to experiment with blockchain technology. With it, they’re tracking and monitoring vaccine supply chains.
How does it work? When a vaccine shipment is in transit, there are sensors that track the temperature. If the temperature rises above what it should, this change will be entered immediately within the blockchain.
Then, the affected dose is subsequently removed from the vaccine supply chain.
Smart Contracts With Blockchain
In 2021, there was a rise in the use of blockchain for smart contracts. What is this, exactly? A smart contract is an agreement between two parties or more. The blockchain records smart contracts as computer code.
Storing smart contracts this way makes them tamper-proof and immutable.
After meeting the predetermined conditions that the parties have agreed upon, the smart contract will come into effect immediately. This system makes it possible for there to be trustless agreements without any intermediaries.
Use In The Insurance Industry
One of the most practical applications of smart contracts could occur in the insurance industry. Insurance companies could easily use smart contracts for issuing insurance payments in an automated way and streamlining bookkeeping.
AXA, an insurance giant based in France, has been using smart contracts for quite a while now, since 2017.
They do this via the flight delay product, Fizzy. Using Ethereum smart contracts, this product helps to compensate for flights automatically.
Becoming A Part Of The Metaverse
One of the biggest up-and-coming trends these days is the Metaverse. Companies like Microsoft and Facebook are already investing money in this virtual world.
As the Metaverse becomes a more significant part of our world, blockchain technology will be instrumental in its success.
After all, blockchain technology makes it possible to store Metaverse user data on a tamper-proof shared ledger, enabling greater trust within the virtual environments of the Metaverse.
Blockchain-Based Metaverse Projects
Currently, there are already some blockchain-based Metaverse projects. These include Decentraland and The Sandbox, which exist on the Ethereum blockchain. As a result, these projects’ open infrastructures have created a trusted data environment.
The Use Of Non-Fungible Tokens
Non-fungible tokens, popularly known as NFTs, are one of the hottest blockchain trends. But you may be wondering, “What are NFTs?” These are unique tokens minted on a blockchain that people can’t duplicate.
NFTs make it possible, for the first time, for digital assets to have the feature of scarcity. As a result, many new potential blockchains are used now, including and ranging beyond digital and art collectibles.
Think of an NFT as a digital ownership certificate that’s tamper-proof. This certificate can apply to both intangible and tangible assets.
The blockchain makes it possible to verify a large amount of information about one of these assets. For example, this verifiable information could include the selling price, history of origin, and origin.
It’s possible to enable transactions online that are of the trustless type.
Use In The Music Industry
One of the earliest uses of NFTs was in the music industry. Musical artists began to tokenize their songs, after which they would sell them to their fans directly. Additionally, artists could use NFTs in another way because NFTs can be fractionalized.
What does this mean? When someone fractionalizes an NFT, they can mint that asset with several unique copies.
As a result, an artist in the music industry can give fans a small piece of their original song. NFTs also simplify the ability to make automatic royalty payments.
Using NFTs in this way means that managers, musicians, the record label, etc., can get their royalty payments in an automated way.
Governments Using Blockchain Applications
Another latest trend is governments turning to blockchain applications. As we use cryptocurrency more often, governments will start to see a benefit in using blockchain technologies in combination with cryptocurrency.
Use Of The e-Krona In Sweden
Sweden is one of the countries in the world that has the lowest amount of cash payments. So they were pretty fast when it came to creating the e-Krona. There’s already a digital currency pilot that they’ve carried out. The Swedish Riksbank did this with a pilot from February 2020 to February 2022.
Banks Using Blockchain Applications
Many banks, as well as financial institutions, will soon start using blockchain applications. As a result, more than ever, people are choosing to trust blockchain technology instead of the banking institutions they might have given their money in the past.
For this reason, banks and financial institutions are now starting to use blockchain applications. This way, their customers will trust them more and be loyal customers.
Westpac & CBA
One of the largest banks in Australia, Westpac, partnered with the blockchain company Ripple making it possible to send global payments with blockchain technology in 2016. This partnership made it possible for Westpac to implement a payment system.
This partnership resulted in a low-cost payment system and made it possible to send payments across borders.
Another Australian bank, CBA, had a plan in 2015 to form a partnership with Ripple.
The plan was to create a ledger system based on blockchain technology to use between subsidiaries for payment settlements.
The Real Estate Industry Using Blockchain
Another industry where blockchain use is trending is the real estate industry. This truth exists because many processes related to real estate require the trust and the use of contracts. Blockchain technology is an ideal technology for transparency and the creation of smart contracts. It’s no secret that the real estate industry could benefit from both.
Additionally, another exciting trend that could occur within the real estate industry relating to blockchain technology is the potential for fractional ownership.
This is an exciting potential development, as it makes it easier than ever for many people to own a property. In addition, this could make it easier, for example, for a large number of interested investors to invest in a property.
RealT Using Blockchain
Many real estate companies use blockchain, but we’ll focus on RealT in this article. RealT is an investment platform for people interested in investing in real estate. RealT uses the fractional feature that comes with blockchain technology.
Specifically, this solution is based on a blockchain network that is token-based and fully compliant. Additionally, it’s for people interested in investing in the real estate market in the US.
How does it work? Investors use permissionless Ethereum to buy into tokenized properties. Then, they can maintain low-maintenance ownership and access cash flow via RealTokens.
RealT allows the owners to get rent payments in three different currencies. These currencies include Ethereum, xDai, and the US-Dollar stablecoin.
Other blockchain companies in the real estate industry include Republic, Vairt, SafeWire, PropertyClub, RealBlocks, ManageGo, SMARTRealty, Meridio, Reasi, Harbor, and The Bee Token.
Need More Information
Now that you’ve learned about the latest blockchain trends and what they mean, you might need more information. For example, you may want to learn a bit about hybrid blockchains, or you want to learn more about how blockchain works at the micro-level.
Whatever information you need, we can help. At Byte Federal, we’re experts in blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies.
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