Blockchain Beyond Bitcoin: Real-World Applications Transforming Industries
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Since Bitcoin launched all the way back in January 2009, plenty of attention has been paid to the cryptocurrency’s value, which has accelerated from mere cents to many tens of thousands of dollars.
But there’s been less of a focus on the blockchain that underpins BTC — a decentralized ledger that no single person has control of. This technology boosts transparency by offering a record of every transaction that’s ever taken place, plus the balances of each wallet.
For years now, there’s been growing bullishness about the potential real-world use cases for blockchains, with some of the world’s biggest companies beginning to experiment and tackle pain points that affect profitability, productivity, and the user experience.
Here, we’re going to shine a light on just some of the exciting applications that have emerged, which may even have the potential to save lives.
Food Safety
Around the world, there are outbreaks of E.coli and listeria every year — sickening thousands of people as well as causing fatalities.
But given the vast and complicated nature of supply chains, tracing the source of such bacteria can be akin to finding a needle in a haystack. Identifying an outbreak is expensive and time-consuming, with perfectly safe products taken off shelves as a precaution.
Dole, one of the world’s largest producers of fruit and vegetables, is one company that identified blockchain’s potential early on. It has a goal of using this technology to streamline traceability and transparency by the end of this decade.
Back in 2020, the firm said that blockchain slashes the amount of time needed for food safety investigations from weeks to seconds — with every stage of a product’s journey from field to fork meticulously tracked. This reduces illness all while eliminating food waste.
Luxury Goods
For decades, some of the world’s best-known designer brands have been fighting a losing battle against counterfeiters.
This is a multibillion-dollar problem that doesn’t just damage a company’s image. There have been long-running reports of bogus products being manufactured using unsafe materials such as toxic dyes and flammable fabrics. The criminal gangs pumping these fake items into the market often exploit workers with long hours and low wages, too.
Through the blockchain, upmarket firms are now beginning to fight back. The likes of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, Prada, Cartier, Dior, and Givenchy have all signed up to a non-profit known as the Aura Consortium, which wages war on counterfeiters by issuing digital passports that verify whether products are authentic.
This allows buyers to learn more about an item’s origin, claim ownership, take out insurance, and even uncover exclusive extras such as NFTs and digital twins of their products. Given concerns that diamonds can sometimes be sourced from unsafe mines in warzones, in-depth information about an item’s provenance also gives investors added peace of mind.
Such transparency can also protect the resale value of high-end handbags, watches and jewelry — meaning they’ll be worth more on second-hand markets.
The Automotive Sector
Another area that’s proven ripe for disruption thanks to blockchain technology is the automotive sector, with BMW leading the charge in supercharging efficiency across supply chains.
A lot of work goes into manufacturing a car, with the German automobile giant contending with 12,000 suppliers across 70 countries. As crucial parts and components make their way around the world, progress is often tracked through paper forms and Excel spreadsheets, with executives admitting that there hasn’t been much progress in the way of digitization.
All of that changed in 2019, when an ambitious pilot program was held that led to front lights being purchased directly through the blockchain. This resulted in greater levels of transparency and data sharing between parties, all while ensuring sensitive information was anonymized.
BMW went on to found the Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative — otherwise known as MOBI for short — which counts other industry heavyweight such as Honda, Hyundai, and IBM among its members. Recent innovations have included efforts to reduce the cost of owning vehicles and slicker management of the lifecycle surrounding batteries in electric vehicles.
Phil Masi, the president and CEO of BMW Bank in North America, was quoted as saying: “Blockchains and distributed ledgers will enable better accuracy, transparency, and process efficiencies by allowing financial institutions to trust the data they have, mitigate risk, have more confidence in their decisions, and ultimately help the industry realize digital transformation more quickly.”
Healthcare
Blockchains are also making their presence felt in the world of healthcare. Projects have been embarking on a concerted push to securely store medical records on these networks — giving patients much greater control over their sensitive information, and who can access it.
Such ledgers can also make it easier for researchers around the world to share results from clinical trials, while anonymized data delivers greater understanding of incurable conditions and better patient outcomes.
Just like the luxury sector is using blockchain to clamp down on counterfeit goods, the world of healthcare is increasingly turning to this technology to verify the provenance of prescription drugs — and prevent unauthorized or low-quality products from entering the supply chain.
Freight
Another successful use case comes from Walmart in Canada, where the supermarket giant was suffering from huge data discrepancies. Given the company processes more than 500,000 shipments every single year, that’s a huge problem.
A staggering 70% of the invoices that were filed by its freight providers ended up being disputed in one way or another — meaning payments ended up taking months, shipping costs surged, and staff members ended up becoming disillusioned.
That led to a blockchain network called DL Freight being established that captured information on how deliveries were progressing in real time — and this led to the number of discrepancies within invoices falling to just 1%.
Applications like this don’t just have the potential to boost a company’s bottom line. Why? Because these costs can then be passed on to consumers.
Opportunities — And Challenges
It’s pretty remarkable to see how blockchain technology has already been embraced by so many industries, and the potential efficiencies it could deliver in the future.But as ever, the road to adoption is littered with potential hurdles and roadblocks.
For one, there are real concerns that many major blockchains lack the scalability needed to power vast enterprises that process tens of thousands of transactions a day. Without near-immediate confirmation times and low costs, this infrastructure could end up being impractical for widespread use.
And while the Ethereum blockchain has won plaudits among regulators after making the switch to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, resulting in considerably less energy use, concerns remain over rivals that use proof-of-work instead. Businesses with environmental targets, and a pledge to go to net zero, may be reluctant to take the risk of using technology that undermines their eco-friendly pledges.
Fragmentation remains another persistent issue that the blockchain sector struggles to overcome, meaning networks don’t have the ability to talk to one another. While bridges have been established that allow assets and information to flow freely, some have attracted security concerns and multimillion-dollar hacks. Other headaches arise when you consider these networks would have to plug into existing IT systems, too. The deeply technical and intricate world of blockchain can also be a steep learning curve for everyday businesses — with a shortage of talented developers meaning many companies lack the skills to get their ambitious projects off the ground. Although embracing this technology often results in huge financial savings a few years down the track, the initial cost of getting a network up and running can end up being prohibitive.
Blockchains have the opportunity to play a bigger part in the economy over the years to come — especially as the powerful narrative positioning tokenization as the future of finance continues to play out. This, when coupled with the countries rolling out central bank digital currencies on permissioned networks, may make it easier for firms to take the plunge.
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Ihssan El Medkouri 
Camila Karam 
