For more than 20 years the Internet was narrowed down to the usage of a few tech-savvy that knew how to navigate it. It’s only in 1993-94 that it became mainstream when Marc Andreessen created the Mosaic browser while studying at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and brought the Internet to the general public allowing them to navigate the web comfortably with a positive user-friendly experience. And, for the first time user could establish an active presence over the internet by loading their own documents, photos, sounds, video clips, and hypertext “links” to other documents. And just like that, navigation of the internet started to have a meaning and it made sense to a layman.
Afterward, Marc Andreessen was on the team that created Netscape, the Internet browser that reached 38 million users in eighteen months breaking records, and the first dot-com company was made.
In the blockchain world, Bitcoin (2008) was the first application of the technology, the most disruptive, and its first wave of users, just like in the first internet era, was also more on the technical savvy side. Despite significant immunization of capital into the blockchain space, we have not had yet an incredible app or project that could compare to Mosaic or Netscape.
This is why we still believe to be in the early stages of the blockchain technological cycle similar to 1994 during the Internet Revolution, expecting more market cycles to happen in the upcoming years.
During the early days of the internet, people could actually communicate with each other without the need of a central company like Facebook or Google. Decentralizing the web simply means going back to the origin of how the internet was intended and promote a peer to peer communication again. In technical terms, it also means a shift in how information is stored and retrieved. While nowadays we use http and https links to identify information on the web by location, this will be done by content instead, making it easier for websites and files to be stored and passed around from peer to peer (computer to computer) rather than having one single server as a receiver and transmitter of information.
The financial services industry is up for serious disruption—or transformation, depending on how it approaches this issue. For the research for Blockchain Revolution, we went through and identified eight different things that the industry does: it moves value, it stores value, it lends value, it trades value, it attests to value, it accounts for value, and so on.
All these things can be challenged and can be better with the use of Blockchain.
Followings are the sectors that can utilize the immense potential of Blockchain technology:
Financial Services
The issue with today’s banking systems, as sophisticated as they are compared to decades past, is that they lack inclusion and fairness. Interest rates and transactions are heavily laid in favor of financial companies, and customers gain little & pay more. It gets worse when you realize that banking services are absolutely necessary. Hence, individuals are forced into unfair deals.
Blockchain can universally rectify the situation. With a smartphone and an internet connection, both of which are widely available, anyone can bank, start a business and receive payments. With no centralized authority & incorruptible ledgers for oversight, financial services on the blockchain would place power back in the individual’s hands, offering solutions without exorbitant interest rates and additional multilayer middleman fees. The banking industry even suggests that up to $20 billion can be saved by eliminating infrastructure and middlemen charges.
Real Estate
Blockchain integration with Smart Contracts can make finding and renting out a house seamless. Because it directly connects landlords with tenants, it removes brokers and their unreasonable fees from the rental equation. And, because of the auto-enforcing nature of Smart Contracts, it is a lot easier for potential tenants and landlords to connect, make decisions, establish, financial terms and offer payments.
With the implementation of Blockchain, we are aimed to establish a P2P network of hosts and guests. If blockchain is implemented users will be assured security and there won’t be problems of fake reviews, and data breach.
Healthcare
Data of individual patients are a crucial part of the medical industry. Secure storage and data access, which could be protected and make efficient diagnosis, is possible with blockchain. Since healthcare is a pillar of any national economy; the industry is difficult to modernize on a large scale and is hindered by legacy data management systems and outdated infrastructure.
Blockchain aims to provide cheaper and more efficient solutions to patient data processing.
Supply Chain Management
The Supply chain industry is one filled with many challenges, most of which are concerned with reducing rising costs and efficiently supplying products to retailers and customers. However, the industry faces several unmanageable obstacles.
Blockchain-based Smart Contracts offer a potential solution to this problem. Imagine if an industry as significant as the automobile industry utilized a system in which cars would be manufactured only when a fixed number of requests were received.
To eliminate the worry of overestimating demand and resource consumption, it is possible for funds to be locked into a contract, using Smart Contracts, whereupon manufacturers would begin production only after a certain number has been reached. As well, it will eliminate the middlemen by directly connecting consumers with manufacturers.
Government
There is a little need for decentralized systems in governance. In many parts of the world and, even in the USA which has been held as the gold standard for democracy since long, voting power is manipulated and twisted to favor parties or even certain individuals.
Using Blockchain technology a peer to peer governance protocol can be created, and only you, the voter have access to your voter information. Because of the transparent nature of the Blockchain, those in power will be held more accountable for their actions.
Insurance
Insurance policies are approved through the verification of the insured party’s data. The approval of insurance and payout of claims are still severe pain points for the industry. The insurance market has several layers of intermediaries; the process is inefficient and lacks ease of communication.
With the implementation of Blockchain we can encourage new business models, reduce risk through better data access, increase transaction speed & insurance approval, and of course, improve overall customer experience.
Publishing
Today’s publishing industry is largely in the control of a small group of publishers. It can be difficult for a yet unrecognized writer to break into the industry, and their success is dictated by the whims and fancies of these publishers.
Blockchain-powered platform can overturn the current system, where influence is in the hands of publishers, by using a tokenized system that recognizes the work of any writer. In the blockchain-based publishing system, writers can also write and publish without the assistance of publishers.
Energy
The energy industry is also filled by middlemen. Blockchain technology could change that by letting individuals buy and sell energy through smart contracts.
Blockchain technology can recreate the concept of how power can be generated, conserved, traded and shared. With the help of this technology, users can sell power that they`ve stored on their solar panels. Any excess power that isn’t essential could be sold for value.
Job Marketplace
The systems of employment have been changing. Studies have shown that employees, along with demands for good pay, wish for flexibility with work and the freedom to work from home.
Freelancing has grown and become more popular. While professionalism has grown on both sides, trust always remains an issue because there is currently no way to enforce it. But, blockchain can change it, with the implantation of blockchain, clients and freelancers can interact. And, both parties can be assured of their requested services. With the help of blockchain we can sustain a freelance market, that freelancers will love, but with the assurance of pay and delivery of work.
Internet of things
By the integration of Blockchain with Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things is another technological development that is up and coming, with radically trans formative effects.
The term of this integration is Intelligent IoT, which has the potential to essentially connecting all our devices through the internet. Hence, we are soon to live in a world where our smartphones can talk to our cars and fridges.
With no central system necessary, blockchain would make this heavy processing much easier to handle while also securing data in an encrypted format. Tokenized mechanisms can monetize transactions between different devices and seamlessly integrate different services.
CONCLUSION
Blockchain will further establish a sense of equality and democracy through its disruptive power. It will create a more level playing field, where individuals and small businesses will be able to compete with corporate powers that have established their dominance through the advantage of value if implanted correctly.
Basically, the lesson here is, in whatever industry financial mechanisms favor one party over the other, blockchain can come in to equalize the system and ensure that everyone gets their fair cut.
There are many Startups implementing Blockchain technology in business, but they aren’t cost-effective and blockchain platforms have their limitations. Era Swap sees this as an opportunity to build an ecosystem that solves these problems.
Era Swap has newly launched Era Swap Life Ecosystem; it incorporates many interlinked platforms such as Time Trading, e-Marketplace for farmers, for Local Shops, e-Learning App, Freelance Platform, Social Sharing Platform, Online Prediction Platform, Rewarding Platform for Networkers and many more Decentralized Self-sustainable platforms are coming soon to appreciate the value you deliver.
https://www.blocklogy.org/blog/blockchain-future-of-the-internet/