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Blockchain or distributed ledger technology has reached far beyond its crypto beginnings. Blockchain is now not limited to the financial sector, but expanding in healthcare, supply chain management, automotive sector, the fashion industry, and many more diversified fields. Presently, companies and organizations are exploring the opportunities to integrate Blockchain with Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things, and many other technologies for an all-new experience. In the financial sector particularly crypto space, where Blockchain is coming with better products and services like tokenization, smart contracts, stable coins and many more to revamp the payment system all across the world. According to Gartner (research and advisory firm), Blockchain stands among the top ten strategic technologies for 2020. In this article, let us understand the future trends of Blockchain technology.
Future Trends of Blockchain Technology
What is Blockchain? It is a technology that follows the model of decentralization eliminating the need for intermediary while transferring the currency or information from one end to another. A distributed ledger system is maintained which is open to the participants connected to the particular network ensuring the transparency, non-immutability, and traceability of any transaction. It not only reduces the time in transferring the particular data or assets but also negates the cost of transaction. Blockchain growth is undeniable in the 21st century due to the number of advantages associated with it.
Let us find out the Blockchain opportunities waiting in 2020:
Blockchain As A Service (BaaS)
BaaS or Blockchain As A Service is the new trend of emerging blockchain technology which started to integrate with start-up companies and prominent organizations. As BaaS is a cloud-based solution it offers users to design, host, and adopt their own digital products, applications, and smart contracts on the blockchain. Technology is slowly evolving the Fourth Industrial Revolution and deploying the appropriate Blockchain as a service provider could help any business to survive till the end. BaaS aids in introducing skilled Blockchain developers, process, and governance experts along with complete cloud infrastructure to start up or any other company without huge overhead costs. BaaS can be part of the future trends of Blockchain. Some of the service providers are Microsoft, Amazon, and many more.
DeFi Apps In Banking And Finance
As per the latest report PWC, Blockchain technology could be adopted in more than 77 percent of financial institutions by the end of 2020. DeFi or Decentralised Finance Apps made on Blockchain Technology have the potential to create an infrastructure for borderless savings, loans, trading, insurance, and many more services that could be accessed through smartphones with internet access. Being disintermediated, it creates the permissionless flexible user experience. DeFi can be included in blockchain trends in 2020 which will be more transparent with a better-secured network. Also, Blockchain can reduce the additional bureaucracy while providing faster transactions with negligible transactional costs in the banking system.
Distributed Ledger In Government Agencies
Government agencies of many countries across the globe are considering the importance of Blockchain to manage the massive database. Decentralization of information can help in the integration of information from various sectors of a particular citizen, thereby reducing the time and cost incurred while running the files between the departments. Thus, effective database management with utmost transparency and security can advance the experience of both agencies and citizens. For instance, the majority of public services in Estonia have access to X-Road, decentralised ledger systems of information related to residents and citizens, making it easy for them for data management. Thus, the future of blockchain might be associated with government departments also.
Integration of IoT and Blockchain
As per the reports of International Data Corporation, many IoT Companies are looking forward to implementing Blockchain technology in their solutions in 2020. The Internet of Things or IoT is itself the latest technology which is facing challenges of security and scalability. Blockchain has the capability to aid IoT in overcoming the problems and revamping the framework for communication in the IoT network. With billions of devices already connected and the gradual diversification of the network, IoT has become a target of cyberattacks. Blockchain technology offers the chance to IoT to double its power as blockchain securely extends the data without tampering the previous set of blocks. The integration of IoT can be noticed as a blockchain technology future ahead.
Adoption Of Smart Contracts
Smart contracts are the contracts based on Blockchain technology which allows the automatic transaction of assets after the completion of specified conditions. For instance, once the delivery of goods is completed, the transaction will automatically process. Without any need for intermediary and maintaining the long manual book for database management, smart contracts can help in transforming the insurance industry, Accounting firms, and even the taxation process can also be reformed. One of the challenges of handling the disputes among the parties involved in smart contracts needs to be addressed. Otherwise, smart contracts offered by Blockchain technology have the true potential to be a part of future trends of Blockchain technology.
Blockchain Professionals
Scalability, interoperability, and technical complexity considered as the buzzwords related to the problems faced by most of the organizations. The latest technology of Blockchain has the solutions for most of the challenges currently faced by the industries. But to deploy this technology, advisories and professionals are needed by the particular company. Thus, as the technology rolls out gradually, the demand for experts will accelerate. Blockchain practitioners with enough practical knowledge and experience could be new trendsetters and their demand in the industry could increase. The technology is relatively new with few of the practitioners present in the marketplace, so the coming years could prove a boon to them. Blockchain’s future predictions include that professionals related to Blockchain could prove as differentiators in the future.
Regulatory Clarification
Blockchain technology is based on a decentralized model of sharing the information or completion of transactions so there is no central authority to back or regulate the network. As the hype of cryptocurrency is increasing and the need for Blockchain is growing, government agencies across the world are planning to regulate the network to protect their citizens along with providing the best of Blockchain technology. The regulatory landscape is muddling and struggling to completely understand the technology and put some checks for the better utilization of Blockchain technology. The importance of regulation cannot be ignored in the present era of increasing cyber crimes and other scammers, so besides looking at the new projects of Blockchain, future trends of Blockchain technology holds the importance of regulation also.
Summing Up
Either you call the current scenario as blockchain hype, or really considers Blockchain as the way to evolve the industrial space, future trends of Blockchain technology tends to be inclined towards the positive side. It seems to be clear that the adoption of Blockchain and its implementation in the private and government agencies is undeniable to resolve the challenges of the present and upcoming space. As all of us are becoming socially aware and expecting for the hassle-free sharing of information and completion of transactions in the near future, Blockchain technology seems to resolve the number of issues and have the potential to become part of daily routine either alone or integrating with other technologies.
