Blockchain technology has huge potential in improving global trade. By streamlining supply chains, improving traceability, simplifying trade, and improving financial transactions, blockchain can help businesses save money while preserving their competitive edge. With this in mind, many companies have started exploring ways to use blockchain technology in their operations.
What is blockchain
A blockchain is a form of decentralized database technology that records digital transactions. This technology allows for the safe transfer and sharing of data, such as documents, IDs, and money using a public ledger. The most fascinating fact about blockchain technology is that it can never be altered or erased once a transaction occurs. This makes blockchain technology very secure and transparent.
Blockchain for business purposes
Blockchain can benefit almost any business. Statista report shows that global spending on blockchain solutions has risen from $4.5bn in 2020 to a projected $6.6bn by the end of this year. Not only that, by 2024, the world is about to spend about $19bn on blockchain-run platforms.
Why is that?
With the rise of the IoT, blockchain has given way to a new generation of smart appliances, wearable technology, and connected vehicles. This presents a concerning question: How can we keep our data secure when shared with third parties? Blockchain-based security protocols make it possible to transfer and store sensitive data without fear of it being leaked or stolen.
Top Blockchain platforms for your business
Not every blockchain platform offers many capabilities. Sometimes, choosing the right one for your business can be a struggle. That is why you should know how to evaluate platforms in order to find one for your needs. The good news is you can find a good bunch of reputable consulting companies like Cllax that have a broad knowledge of the IT sector and can give you proper advice.
Ethereum
Ethereum is a decentralized platform with an open-source blockchain that allows developers to build and deploy decentralized applications. Ethereum uses a cryptocurrency called Ether for peer-to-peer transacting, smart contracts, and distributed computing platforms. The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance connects Fortune 500 enterprises, startups, academics, and technology vendors with Ethereum subject matter experts.
A few of the key advantages over the competitors are the ability to buy Ethereum, high popularity, decentralization, and interoperability. Not only that, ETH has a cross-industry focus which means that businesses can use it for many purposes. Ethereum does have one disadvantage – because the ledger type is permissionless, everyone can join the network, thus making it slower.
Hyperledger Fabric
Hyperledger Fabric is an open-source enterprise-ready blockchain platform designed to handle business transactions at the speed of business. Fabric takes care of high performance, security, and scalability for a blockchain network by delivering high throughput and low latency. It is designed to provide privacy and identity management with built-in support for confidential transactions through data encryption and permissions through authentication.
Hyperledger Fabric is hosted by Linux Foundation and has serious backing from IBM. Hyperledger is permissioned, which means that it is private, and not everyone can join the network. It offers a fantastic throughput rate of 2000 transactions per second (compared to Ethereum’s 20) and increased security, making it a great enterprise option. It doesn’t have a crypto coin, meaning it might be more stable than blockchains that have a coin.
Ripple
Ripple is the first global, real-time gross settlement system developed by Ripple company on an open-source internet protocol. The currency powering ripple is known as XRP. Unlike other cryptocurrencies, it can be used for any kind of transaction in a wide range of currencies. XRP can settle payments in 4 seconds, and that’s a time that creates real, tangible business value. The ability to handle 1500 up to transactions per second in a cheaper way makes it a hot asset for many.
But Ripple has one big goal – to provide cross-border transactions for substantially less money. The current big industry player is SWIFT. We can see how they compare toe-to-toe. One last thing to consider is while investors can trade with XRP, it is intended to be utilized by banking institutions.
Conclusion
The uses of blockchain technology are endless. Blockchain can serve as a building block for financial services, a reliable source of identity, and a payment method which is not only convenient to use, but also easy to understand. Many industries are beginning to adopt blockchain into their workflows. From asset tracking to supply chain management, to medical records, blockchain has a hand in improving all of these processes with absolute transparency and security. The possibilities are endless — no matter your business, you can integrate blockchain to save time and money.
