Uses of Blockchain Technology
Satoshi Nakamoto is the founder of Blockchain Technology. He first created a system around 10 years ago and aimed to empower individuals financially through a safe and secure global financial platform. Therefore, the financial industry, banks, and cryptocurrency have got more benefits from Blockchain. But that doesn’t mean that it only limits to the financial industry. For example, starting from the Bitcoin Exchange, we can keep records of medical and healthcare, supply chain data, election data and etc.
As mentioned earlier, the demand for the Blockchain increases day by day due to numerous factors as follows:
- The top factor highlights as reducing the chances of fraud, human error, and manipulation in any kind of industry.
- Through using smart contracts like protocols eliminate the extra efforts in a clearing, settlement and etc. That means, it reduces the administrative cost and make fast the transaction process.
- Blockchain eliminates the charges of offline reconciliation.
- Makes secure the settlements of cross-company transactions.
- Reduce redundancy in the organization.
- Makes authorized access for real-time data.
What Is Blockchain and How Does It Help to Design Secure Fintech Products?
Blockchain is a sequential chain of blocks that are protected from hackers and data leakages. It is a misconception that this technology is used only in cryptocurrency. In fact, blockchain can be applied anywhere where it is important to design secure fintech products and more. Check this review of the best fintech development companies, if you are looking for developers for hire.
What is hashing
Before talking about blockchain, you need to understand what hashing is. Hashing is taking any message and encrypting it using a special algorithm.
Each time, this algorithm will convert the text to the same hash. In order to generate a hash, you can use an online hash generator.
You are unlikely to know what is encrypted here. Also, if at least one comma is missing or any letter changes a case, the hash will change completely.
At the time of this writing, the only way to decrypt the hash is by brute force. In theory, to find the right one, you have to try an infinite number of combinations.
One use case for hashes is for storing passwords. When a user logs into the system, his data will not be stored in a pure form, but in the form of a hash.
Every time they enter a password, it will be hashed again, and only then it will be compared with what is recorded in the database. Even if someone steals the database, they won’t know what password was used.
What is a blockchain for?
You can use this technology for anything, not just cryptocurrency. For example, identity cards can be stored on the blockchain. This will prevent fraudsters from using the documents of deceased people, replacing them with a photograph.
However, don’t think that such a system is 100% reliable. There may be errors in the software itself, which will allow data to be stolen before it is hashed. However, it is much more secure than to store information in a traditional way.
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Future Trends of Blockchain Technology
After getting massive success in applying Blockchain to the Cryptocurrency, most of the financial institutions began to use Blockchain applications. In fact, a recent PWC report says that 77% of financial institutions are expected to use Blockchain for their main business processes in 2020. And another prediction was made by the global research and advisory firm, Gartner. They say that 1 billion dollars of business value will provide for the banking industry through Blockchain-based Cryptocurrencies in 2020. Even the Australian Securities Exchange is planning to use a new Blockchain system to manage its financial market in 2020. Therefore we can expect the economy and finance will lead Blockchain in 2020.
Another future trend related to the Blockchain will be the integration of government agencies. The shared or distributed ledger is a very important concept for government agencies. Because they have to deal with very large quantities of data and each agency has separate databases. So, it is very important to apply Blockchain technology to such agencies to make efficient their data management processes.
Smart Contract is another huge benefit of Blockchain. Although it is very easy and useful, there are some legal problems regarding Smart Contracts. Everybody should know that these are decentralized and aren’t regulated by any authority. So, the issues occur when the presence of disagreements and disputes between parties and countries. Therefore, there’s a critical need of enforcing a proper law regarding these contracts to solve the current issues. Law integration into Smart Contracts will be another beneficial factor to the Blockchain.
When considering the above factors, it can be predicted that, as a profession, Blockchain developers and experts will be in high demand in 2020. Since the technology is new, the Blockchain engineers, developers, and experts will be limited in the market according to the demand. Therefore, it will be a huge investment to study and get more experience in this field.