20 scopes of Blockchain outside financial services, part 1

Blockchain technology is at the heart of our Wirex payment service . Market trends suggest that in recent years, solutions have emerged on the basis of a distributed registry that extend beyond the financial industry. This review contains projects from 20 areas of blockchain usage. In the 1st part of the material we list services from 10 industries, including: authorship and ownership, operations with goods and raw materials, data management, diamonds, identity verification, energy, electronic voting and other areas.

Despite the fact that interest in Blockchain technology is more closely related to the field of finance, the scope of application of the technology of distributed registries is not limited to it. Along with banks and fintech startups, players from other non-financial markets also paid attention to the technology and are looking for ways to take advantage of the opportunities it provides. Let's look at some interesting examples of practical applications of blockchain technology that exist outside the scope of financial services.

Authorship and ownership

Ascribe helps artists and creative people confirm and maintain the right of authorship with Blockchain. Ascribe Market allows you to create digital editions using unique identifiers and digital certificates to confirm authorship and authenticity. In addition, the mechanism of transfer of ownership from the artist or the author to the buyer or collector, including its legal aspects, has been established.

Other examples of services in this area: Bitproof , Blockai , Stampery , Verisart , Monegraph , Crypto-Copyright crypto-copyright.com , Proof of Existence .

Operations with goods and raw materials

The Real Asset Company allows individuals around the world to safely and efficiently buy gold and silver bars. The company has developed an investor-friendly platform that operates on the basis of the international infrastructure of safes and vaults and provides an online account to buyers of gold, silver or other precious metals. Goldbloc's gold-backed internal cryptocurrency adds an extra level of transparency to the gold investment management process. According to the company, the ability to “tie” every gram of gold to digital cryptocurrency will help bring gold back to the financial systems of countries.

Uphold- a platform for moving, converting, making transactions and storing any form of money, goods or raw materials. The service ties together banking, credit, debit cards and bitcoin wallets in an internal digital wallet service to simplify financial services or transactions. Businesses and individuals can transfer funds to their account in the system using a bank transfer, debit card, credit card, or bitcoin wallets.

Data management

Factom is a remarkable blockchain-company that uses distributed registries outside the financial sector, in this case in the field of data management. The company's identification blockchains are used to implement a database management and data analysis system in various areas. Businesses and governments, non-profit organizations use Factom to simplify the procedures for maintaining records, recording information about business processes. Factom solutions allow customers to conduct their business in accordance with the security and regulatory requirements of their market. All entries in Factom have time stamps and are stored on blockchains, which reduces the cost and complexity of managing, auditing, and complying with regulatory legislation.

Diamonds

The diamond industry is one of the largest branches of natural mining, which also makes a significant contribution to the GDP of African and other diamond-mining countries. Its distinguishing feature is a high level of crime and violations of the law. Precious stones are very small in size and therefore easily amenable to hidden transportation. The most pleasant part for criminals is that transactions are carried out confidentially, and each sale at the same time allows you to make a profit for several years. Diamonds have the ill fame of a money laundering tool and a means of financing terrorism on a truly huge scale throughout the world. Everledger,

one of the pioneering technology companies, is working on solving a number of such acute and difficult problems .. It provides various interested parties from insurance companies and claimants for rights to law enforcement agencies access to the registry with immutable historical data, allowing to identify diamonds and verify the authenticity of transactions with them. The service produces a “digital passport” for each diamond - a kind of unique tag that accompanies its gemstone in all of its associated transactions.

Digital Identity, Authentication, and Proof of Access

2WAY.IO , ShoCard , Guardtime , BlockVerify , HYPR , Onename and a number of other companies use distributed registry technology in solutions designed to identify and verify access rights.

Here, Blockchain is far from being used only for transferring funds. Decentralized distributed registries can be used to store any type of data and perform various transactions in a safe and open way. Moreover, the creation of an identity in the blockchain can provide individuals with greater control over access to their personal data and the degree of their openness to others.

The combination of the principle of decentralization of the blockchain and identity verification tools allows you to create a digital ID that plays the role of a kind of watermark that can be put on any transaction with any asset.

Some other examples of companies from this area:

Civic is a blockchain-based identity management platform whose services are aimed at solving the problem of theft of customers' personal information. The service allows users to register, confirm personal information and protect their credit history from fraudsters.

UniquID Walletprovides a secure identity management solution integrated with fingerprint scanners and other biometric personal devices. Work with the UniquID Wallet application is available on non-standard devices, servers, personal computers or smartphones, tablets and other devices with a limited time without power. Among the stated capabilities, you can highlight individual blockchain storage for information about the used "devices" and the absence of passwords, replaced by user recognition algorithms for personal objects connected to the system. This allows for the highest possible level of integrity and interoperability across any infrastructure.

Identificonnects all personal network profiles and personal data into a single identification tool.

Evernym is an international identification network created on the basis of its own high-speed, advanced, distributed rights-sharing registry, designed to provide tools for controlling personal data. The source code of the project is open.

Power industry

The founders of Energy Blockchain Labs claim that the company is the only enterprise in the world whose activity is entirely devoted to the full cycle of creating value added in the energy industry. Founded in 2016 by three experienced experts in the field of energy, finance and information technology, the laboratory is working on revolutionary solutions, including joint projects with other companies aimed at developing a number of energy-based Internet technologies based on Blockchain and solving problems in the field of and energy consumption, trade, management and others.

In the energy industry there are other areas where talented entrepreneurs managed to find a way to apply decentralized distributed registries. Here are some interesting examples.

Grid Singularity is a decentralized information exchange platform in the industry, providing a range of applications that simplify data analysis and testing, smart grid management, green certificate management, and more.

Project TransActive Grid from LO3 Energyis a cryptographically protected decentralized open source application platform. Built-in business logic tools allow real-time measurement of the level of generation and consumption of electricity, as well as some other indicators. The project is under development and the first demonstration facility is currently operating in Brooklyn, New York.

Electronic voting tools

Follow My Vote is developing a secure and transparent platform for anonymous online voting, using Blockchain technology and elliptical cryptography to ensure accurate and reliable results. The source code of the project is open.

In February 2016, the Nasdaq and the Estonian government announcedthat the state platform of digital residence e-Residency will be used to simplify the blockchain voting process at shareholders' meetings of companies listed on the Nasdaq's Tallinn Stock Exchange, the only regulated in the country. The e-Residency platform is an electronic identification system that is widely used by both Estonian residents and people who have business interests in the country and allows all owners of relevant identification cards and digital keys to access a wide range of government, banking and other services.

Gambling and video games

The blockchain has found its fans even in the gambling and video game industries - another vivid example of the limitless and rich imagination of entrepreneurs.

Etheria is a virtual world where players try to take possession of the cells of the playing field, mining them for blocks, and building something on them. All data describing the world and its state, as well as all actions of the players are stored in the decentralized Ethereum blockchain.

First blood- a platform that allows cybersportsmen to challenge each other in various game disciplines, for fans to place bets or to judge games, as well as to organize tournaments and receive rewards from any such activity. First Blood works on the basis of Ethereum-blockchain with its own 1ST token, actively using smart contracts to process results and oracles as a source of information about the results of matches.

Etheramid is a cryptocurrency pyramid that calls itself the most honest invitation game ever created. The service charges ethers for each participant for each invited new member (7 levels in total). The accrual algorithm is based on a self-managed smart contract that neither the developers nor the owner of the pyramid can change.

MotionFreeMyVunk aims to make it possible to exchange virtual property in video games. The platform exists as an Ethereum-based blockchain, whose tokens (VUNK) act as currency of exchange. The authors of the idea suggest that all gamers in the world join forces, join the network and earn VUNK, including through tweets and referral invitations.

As for the gambling market, here, among other things, you can bring such names as CoinPalace , Etheroll , Rollin , Ethereum Jackpot .

Organization of private and public administration

Blockchain can be used not only to increase the transparency and integrity of political systems. In particular, there is a whole international virtual nation called BITNATION . She has her own citizens, ambassadors, partners, and physical locations around the world. Anyone can join it without any restrictions.

Another interesting example is Advocate , a platform for improving the interaction of citizens with government representatives, aimed at helping both ordinary members of society and applicants for positions of managers in local government bodies.

Also worth mentioning is Borderless- a civil administration platform that positions itself as a coalition of legal (marriages, legal entities, notary) and economic services (basic income, financial transactions) available worldwide, based on smart contracts and Expanse blockchain .

As for solutions for effective management within organizations, there are services such as Otonomos , BoardRoom and Colony for this purpose . Otonomos and BoardRoom automate the process of forming, financing and managing a company using Blockchain. Colony allows residents from around the world to create online companies.

Internet of things

Chronicled is a San Francisco company that launched in August a promising blockchain platform for the Internet of Things aimed at improving consumer experience.

Within the framework of the project, Ethereum-Blockchain stores identification data of physical objects, such as consumer goods and collectibles with embedded BLE and NFC microchips. This makes it possible to create digital identifiers that are safe and compatible with many other systems, which opens up opportunities for new mechanisms of interaction with the consumer, based on tracking its proximity to the subject. The Chronicled project is distributed under the Apache license, that is, with fully open source.

Filamentoffers a range of proprietary software and hardware solutions for large-scale smart management of industrial systems and equipment. The company's development is based on the principles of decentralization, cryptographic protection and autonomy. Chimera

service offers its own system of care for the elderly and people in need of care, as well as physical devices (bracelets, medallions) and applications for remote collection and analysis of vital signs and determine situations when the person wearing them needs help. In the next part of the review, we will consider blockchain solutions for the labor exchange, market forecasting, multimedia distribution, network infrastructure, real estate and other business areas.