Building blocks of success

Blockchain has captured the attention of the financial and technology market audience since the past 10 years. In layman's terms, Blockchain was invented by a person (or group of people) using the name Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 to serve as the public transaction ledger of the cryptocurrency bitcoin.

There are different blocks in this programme, and the growing list of records is simply known as blocks. Each of the blocks are linked using cryptography. Blockchain has become one of the most reliable and secure technologies for storing and transmission of different kindsof data. 

Current market scenario

Blockchain is a hot topic in the market today. As per a World Economic Forum survey, 10 per cent of the global GDP would be stored using blockchain by 2027. The technology used in banking and cryptocurrency has shattered records. As per a 2019 survey, businesses are likely to invest $2.9B on the technology in the coming years. This would be a 90 per cent hike compared to the previous financial ear. And Blockchain applications have now extended to insurance, gaming, and many other sectors.

Blockchain works via a de-centralised platform, and hence there is no central supervising force required here — literally making it fraud resistant. It is potentially revolutionising every industry possible. It eliminates the need for mediators and services. For instance, if you are buying a home, you don't need escrow or an agent to help with the transfer - Blockchain will get the task done. So it's user-friendly, time-saving and a digitized way to ensure safe payments.

In a span of five years, from 2018 to 2023, the market is expected to grow from $1.2 billion to almost $23.3 billion at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 80.2 per cent.

The industry is catching up, and the future predictions remain uncertain regarding blockchain being fully adopted. With easy accessibility to the blockchain, the demand for talent is all set to peak.

— Inputs courtesy Hexgn.com

Innovations

• The blockchain industry is brimming with innovations and is also seeing an increasing number of industries adopting the technology through various applications. The next big thing is using open-source blockchain technology. One of them is the collaborative effort called Hyperledger, a project that researches new uses for blockchain-based distributed ledgers. 
• Programmers are creating new collision-proof libraries, which go beyond dated blockchain technologies. For those unsure about using the backend or putting money in crypto have these innovative cryptographic algorithms now that is now helping increasing the reliability factor.
• Companies of all scales areadopting and developing new blockchain applications that are Companies like Brave, created by Brendan Eich of Firefox fame, is focussed on blocking 3rd party advertisements and malware. By doing so, they get Basic Attention Tokens. As a result, publishers benefit with improved marketing techniques and few ads — all of this is based on the blockchain-based ecosystem.

Future trends

As per a Deloitte survey across 1,000 companies, 34 per cent already had a blockchain system in production. 41 per cent were hoping to deploy blockchain applications in 2019, and 40 per cent were prepared to invest $5 million or more in the same. Some of the industries that Blockchain would extend to include, Hedge funds, Messaging Apps, Ride sharing (app cabs), Voting, Internet advertising and many others