The unique merits and benefits of blockchain have led most the industries to leverage it and tout its ability to not only improve auditing but also increase accountability in the business world. But what else can be achieved using blockchain technology? Who is investing in blockchain, and what are the different industries that benefit the most from blockchain integration?

While there are numerous examples of blockchain businesses either currently in operation, awaiting funds from a potential blockchain VC investment, or still waiting to be created, we present you with a few industries that embrace Blockchain technology intending to bring a revolution in their respective sectors.

Blockchain in the supply chain

One of the most renowned examples of blockchain integration in an established industry is the implementation of blockchain in the supply chain sector. Companies offering supply chain services and solutions can configure diverse self-executing protocols in order to assist in the different phases of shipment and distribution, through the use of smart contract technology.

A few of the use cases comprise smart contracts which can instruct trucks to depart when a certain amount of product is loaded or potentially stop a shipment of perishables if truck temperatures fall outside of optimum range or automatically update inventory with each delivery. Supply chain management can also leverage the immutable ledger aspect of blockchain in order to maintain an accurate as well as a transparent account of shipments, which would lead to better tracking & eliminate fraud and uncounted inventory.

Innovations in the supply chain using blockchain

Blockchain-driven innovations in the supply chain will possess the potential to offer huge business value by reducing risk, increasing supply chain transparency, improving efficiency, and overall supply chain management.

“Blockchain has opened the doors for two kinds of solutions; firstly solutions which earlier did not exist and secondly, a safer and more immutable way of implementing the same solution which existed even before blockchain. The supply chain involves a lot of different stakeholders and though we have reached advanced stages of digitization, everyone is digital in their own silos,” says Uddhav Kumar, Chief Executive Officer, Lynkit.

“Keeping supply chain in mind, we at Lynkit have been able to create a platform that converted contracts between different supply chain partners into blockchain smart contracts. The technology gave both parties to do away with hard copy invoice submissions and reduced the time to manually vet all the invoices by 99%. In total we have data coming from over 6 different sources, but all of it is eventually stored and consolidated in this central blockchain and becomes the single source of truth,” he adds.

Blockchain in Healthcare

• Securing patient data

What makes blockchain a technology rife for security applications is its ability to keep an incorruptible, decentralized, as well as a transparent log of all patient data. Furthermore, blockchain is not just transparent but private too. It helps in concealing the identity of an individual using the complex as well as secure codes which can help in protecting the sensitivity of medical data. The decentralized nature of the technology allows various stakeholders of the healthcare industry such as healthcare providers, doctors & patients to share the same data safely & quickly too.

Innovations using blockchain in healthcare

• Storing digital health records using blockchain technology

Factom - one of the blockchain technology organizations that build products that enable the healthcare industry securely store digital records on the organization’s blockchain platform which can be accessed only by administrators of hospitals as well healthcare. Physical papers can be equipped with the company’s special security chips that store information related to a patient and kept as private data that can be accessed only by authorized people.

Real-life impact:

In June 2018, this company received a grant of nearly USD 200000 from the US Department of Homeland Security for beta-testing a platform that was built to integrate secure data from sensors and patrol cameras for gaining a better understanding of the impacts of blockchain in real-time applications.

• Streamline care & prevent costly mistakes

Not communicating accurately among medical professionals costs the healthcare sector USD 11 billion a year. Furthermore, the time-consuming process of gaining access to the medical record of patients is a daunting task therefore the staff resources are exhausted and this leads to a delay in patient care.

This is where blockchain-based medical records come to the rescue. The decentralized nature of the blockchain technology builds 1 ecosystem of patient data that could be effective as well as quickly referenced by hospitals, pharmacists, and doctors who are involved in treatment. In this manner, blockchain technology can result in faster diagnosis and personalized care plans.

• Accelerating care & employing smart contracts

Coral Health - a popular company based in Canada implements blockchain to augment the care process, and improve health outcomes by automating administrative processes. The company connects the various stakeholders such as public health authorities, scientists, doctors & lab technicians quicker than ever by adding patient information into distributed ledger technology.

Real-Life impact: According to Jeremy Mullin, the company’s chief strategy officer, the organization is looking to implement blockchain as well as the Smart on FHIR protocol that would ‘let patients track their own health files.’

Utilizing the idea of the token as a double anonymity approach

“I am pleased to say that there are big pharma companies that are taking this seriously and are utilizing the idea of the token as a double anonymity approach. In other words, you can use a token to share information about yourself but just that information can help them understand and applies the clinical trial and why do they want to do it because there are inefficiencies in the current system,” Alpesh Shah, Sr Director, Global Business Strategy & Intelligence, IEEE Standards Association.

Blockchain in finance

Although Blockchain has proved its ability to revolutionize various industries across the world, the industry-leading way in implementation is finance. Blockchain technology is distributed, decentralized, and public ledger used to record transactions across numerous computers in a network. Owing to its properties & design, it is transparent, secure, and almost impossible to alter.

This underlying technology in the finance industry facilitates currency transfer with confidence that the transaction is reliable & secure.

• Improving transparency

Blockchain possesses the potential to make the financial services industry more transparent, less susceptible to fraud, and at the same cheaper for consumers. Why it can make the financial industry more transparent is because users are performing activities on a public ledger and this transparency can expose inefficiencies such as fraud, leading to problem-solving that could reduce the risk for financial institutions.

• Adding security

The digital world is becoming a breeding ground for scammers since consumers are increasingly going active online. This concern could be reduced with blockchain technology as payments & money transfers made on the blockchain are more traceable as well as faster when compared to any traditional banking practices.

Financial technology organizations and other businesses using huge amounts of data require the blockchain to build data integrity.

• Reducing costs

Today investors are retreating from financial advisors to avoid higher fees and this is where blockchain provides an opportunity for the consumer to benefit from lower costs associated with traditional financial services.

Today Financial technology organizations have become a critical and major part of the financial services industry, and this has allowed investors to not only open accounts with digital advisors but also make independent financial decisions. Since fintech plays a stronger and more significant role in global finance, blockchain’s relationship with fintech will inevitably become stronger.

And, this innovation will certainly be good for consumers as investors are gaining more for their money and getting a balance between automation of financial services & a lower cost.

Providing the gateway to the DeFi landscape

One of the companies providing the gateway to the DeFi landscape via Liquidity & Protocol Aggregation, Personalized Recommendations, Multi-Chain Accessibility & Proprietary Analytics is London-based Reef Finance.

“One of the issues we are solving is the fragmentation of this landscape as we have seen the d5 landscape grows, we have multiple apps, and multiple ecosystems, so it is very hard to manage your LP tokens across multiple wallets,” says Denko Mancheski, Founder & CEO, Reef Finance

“We are building on top of the d5 ecosystem. So, we are composing and integrating on the existing financial primitives out there,” he adds.

Blockchain investments to buy

One of the ways for investors to approach investments who look forward and want to know more about blockchain owing to its ability to transform the financial services industry is buying into companies whose businesses are tapped into blockchain technology is the first way for investors to approach investments. Another approach is where investors could invest in cryptocurrency-oriented stocks which serve as a pure-play for blockchain investments.

The road ahead

According to a research report, by 2030, blockchain could be used as one of the foundational technologies for 30% of the global customer base, and by 2025, it would add a business value that will reach USD 176 billion, which would grow further to USD 3.1 trillion in next 8 years. These show the unfolding potential of the technology.