How Blockchain Technology Can Create Transformative Change On A Global Scale
It’s safe to say 2022 was a tough year for the global cryptocurrency industry. It began with the price of bitcoin steadily falling from its all-time high of nearly $69,000 and ended with the stunning collapse of crypto exchange FTX and the arrest of its disgraced founder and former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried. Between those events, algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD also collapsed, taking down crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital and crypto lenders Voyager Digital and Celsius with it.
While 2023 looks like it could be the year financial regulators give the crypto industry some of the guidelines it needs to help build consumer trust, the truth is that we’re still likely a long way away from cryptocurrencies, including any potential central bank digital currencies, having a massive impact outside of their present use cases. What isn’t far off, however, is the world’s awakening to the transformative impact of the blockchain technology underlying it all.
We’re already seeing how blockchain technology can transform some of the world’s most important industries, namely, banking and global finance. Blockchain technology is expected to have such an impact on global finance that former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton went so far as to say the future of our financial markets depends on successfully adopting it. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon has also praised the technology’s impact on financial markets, arguing it has “far-reaching implications for the global economy.”
But how about outside of finance? Can tokenization or self-executing contracts ever have world-changing impact outside of things involving money? I believe the answer is a resounding “yes.”
Here are three ways blockchain technology is creating transformative change on a global scale:
Cancer Research
Blockchain technology is helping researchers use AI to accurately predict the presence of cancer in patient tissue samples.
A new study by researchers at the University of Leeds in the UK used the swarm learning system to train AI algorithms to accurately detect patterns indicative of cancer in images of patient tissue samples from colon tumors. The team used Ethereum smart contracts to allow three physically separate computers to simultaneously update AI model weights at a designated time without first having to pass the data through a centralized authority. “In this setup, the blockchain maintains the global state information about the model,” the researchers noted.
“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 it is possible to overcome the need for data transfer without institutions having to relinquish secure control of their data.”
Other studies have shown genomics and big data researchers can also benefit from blockchain’s distributed ledger and trustless features. One example is the Cancer Gene Trust being developed by the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health Consortium. The Trust stores and distributes deidentified patient data on a blockchain to enable the secure dissemination of clinical data to benefit all cancer researchers.
Governance
Blockchain technology is helping governments secure their data and improve various systems.
The oft-cited example is Estonia’s KSI Blockchain, which the tiny Baltic nation has been using since 2012 for everything from issuing Smart ID cards to storing healthcare data. Blockchain technology also underpins Estonia’s land title registry system, creating a secure and publicly verifiable record system for residents to assert property rights. Similar blockchain-based land registries now exist or are being piloted in Brazil, India and Russia, among other countries.
The U.A.E. has also gone all in on blockchain technology in recent years. In 2016, it announced the Dubai Blockchain Strategy, an ambitious project to execute all government transactions using blockchain technology and create the world’s first “blockchain-powered city.” The government followed that in 2018 with the Emirates Blockchain Strategy 2021, taking an even more ambitious goal of accomplishing 50% of all national government transactions via blockchain technology.
In January, California, home to the most car registrations in the U.S., announced it will be bringing its car title database onto the Tezos blockchain, allowing drivers to hold their car titles as NFTs and streamlining title transfers.
Logistics
Blockchain technology is helping logistics companies keep track of shipments as they navigate the increasingly crowded global supply chain.
In a general sense, the entire logistics industry could benefit from blockchain’s distributed ledger and ability to track shipping containers’ every movement. Tech giant Oracle offers Intelligent Track and Trace, a SaaS tool that gives businesses a pre-built blockchain application to track shipments from start to finish.
Decentralized blockchain oracle network Chainlink takes things a step further, enabling hybrid smart contracts that communicate with real-world data and services outside of blockchain networks. Chainlink lets companies using blockchain technology give access to off-chain data sources while retaining the blockchain’s security and reliability features. This means logistics companies using one blockchain to track their shipments and another for payments can have the two blockchains communicate and share data, creating more efficient and reliable processes.
Conclusion
Blockchain’s dominance seems inevitable in most, if not all, major global industries. The technology will create more secure, reliable, and efficient systems, and organizations should look for ways to adopt the technology where appropriate. Governments should likewise look to the technology to streamline bureaucratic systems and safeguard citizens’ personal information and other national data.
The companies and governments that proactively adopt blockchain technology will reap the enterprise benefits and lead the way as we exit Web2.5 and realize the potential of Web3.
