Questioning Blockchain: Tracing the Future Promises and Possibilities

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Blockchain in spite of its vast promises is not failing to be commented upon in negative spirit. While many of the traditional and old-school business leaders still seem to be unimpressed about the promise of the technology it is time to evaluate the technology in the light of their naysaying.

If the volatility of Bitcoin is the reason behind all the disbelief in Blockchain, it is time to dissociate the real potential of Blockchain and showcase its real-life values independent of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. The promise of the powerful distributed ledger technology of Blockchain cannot be undermined just because of the market instability of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Let’s start questioning Blockchain technology to evaluate its actual potential.

Is blockchain capable of minimizing the impact of data breaches?

Data breaches are happening every day in some part of the globe, and all are not grabbing headlines. But when they are becoming breaking news like what happened with medical data in Singapore a few months ago, the authorities are forced to take a fresh look at the ways such breaches can be prevented.

Blockchain can come to rescue for such cases of data breaches in the most meaningful ways. As the decentralized ledger system, it not only makes the relevant data accessible to all stakeholders but can also maintain relevance in making different types of data to various professionals. For instance, a large volume of patient data is equally important for the caregivers, doctors, clinical researchers and also insurance companies for assessing risk factors. But, all the data cannot have the same relevance for all these groups of professionals. The distributed ledger of Blockchain by applying relevance based logic can make different data accessible for different groups of professionals.

But apart from boosting the accessibility of the data, such a decentralized system can also put patients and healthcare recipients in better control of their data. For example, a doctor working within a Blockchain based medical data system can be required to ask permission from patients for accessing specific information, and the clinics can be needed to ask patients to access their data before utilizing them for internal research and other purposes.

Just like the data mining with cryptocurrencies, a Blockchain ledger in another industry also can make use of such verified permissions at different levels to control the data access and prevent data breaches.

Here are the key takeaways from using Blockchain to prevent data breaches.

· Decentralizing the data across distributed data blocks to ensure access

· Safeguarding data through encryption

· Control and monitor accessibility through verified permissions

· Allowing access to data based on the relevance

The Hyperledger Fabric

In the B2B space, the promise of Blockchain is being chased by many companies, and the IBM’s new Hyperledger Fabric came as the most enthralling output in recent times. This unique ecosystem will allow a Blockchain Development company and its developers to build a variety of Blockchain solutions. The basic agenda of Hyperledger Fabric is to equip developers to create highly scalable networks allowing both private transactions and confidential multi-party contracts. This coupled up with the permission-based and decentralized and secure ledger delivers the most powerful ecosystem for building business apps.

As the Hyperledger became instantly famous and started to become widely adopted in business applications across niches, the effectiveness of Blockchain technology in B2B space is now evident. It seems naysayers about Blockchain have to argue about the possibilities and transformation it would unfold rather than questioning the buzz.

Boosting governance, efficiency and accountability

The beneficiaries of Blockchain not just include big private parties and B2B giants, but also the government agencies, international organisations and administrative wings. By the very nature of the technology, it would prevent frauds and data breaches through encrypted and verifiable data and permission-based access. Here we mention some of the examples of how Blockchain can prevent fraudulent activities and boost efficiency.

Land governance: Blockchain by holding the entire land records in decentralized registry systems can completely prevent fraudulent entries to change title and ownership. Already in some countries like Brazil, Blockchain based systems are being used for land data registry.

Electoral uses: Blockchain can also be utilized for exercising the voting rights without zero chances of manipulation or frauds. In some highly populated country where electoral infrastructure is subject to corrupt practices, a voter can cast his vote through his computer just by verifying his identity.

Supply chain management: Blockchain has already shown huge promise for supply chain management. Thanks to decentralized ledger the entire supply chain can allow role-based access to data at different points while safeguarding the data through an encrypted and “write-once” data protocol.

Patents vs Open-Source

The distributed data ledger technology of Blockchain already proved itself to be a significant push factor for innovation, data security, stability and growth for many industries and public administration. While this will continue to add value to life and industries, it is important to understand whether any conflict of interest between Blockchain patents and its original character as an open-source technology is taking place.

The core Blockchain technology since the beginning has always been open-source and free. But all the developments that are going on to incorporate supplementary technologies in Blockchain based systems are giving birth to several patents related to distributed data ledger ( DLT). As the Blockchain markets will grow, several patent-related lawsuits from various companies working on distributed ledger system may take place.

Conclusion

The future of Blockchain seems all glory and shine. It is going to be an overwhelming impact across all spheres of life. But the patent war brimming inside among various Blockchain development companies will play a crucial role in shaping the future of the technology.

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A little bit about me: I am a proud co-founder and chief marketing officer at IndianAppDevelopers company, which offers to hire full stack app developers in India. He has over six years’ experience in writing technical articles and documentation on various topics including Blockchain technology, Mobile app development, software development and APIs.