Chapter 7. Blockchain Use Cases

After completing the first six chapters, you should have sufficient knowledge to think about how to apply your newly acquired skills to resolving real-life problems.  As discussed earlier, blockchain is considered to be a game-changing technology, which can potentially disrupt existing business models by making intermediary services obsolete and inspire the creation of new and cost-effective business models.  However, this technology can not resolve all issues and its value can only be fully realized by combining it with other mature or emerging technologies, such as big data platforms, cloud computing, data science/AI, and IoT.

In this chapter, we first talk about popular blockchain use cases across industries, including financial, civil services, supply chain, IoT, and healthcare, at a high level. We will then proceed to a discussion of factors for consideration, before determining proper use cases and developing a successful DApp. Finally, we take the health...

Blockchain use case examples

The evolution of technology has fundamentally changed people's lives. Throughout human history, machines have replaced humans for performing various tasks. For example, in agriculture, farming vehicles made farming work less labor-intensive and greatly increased productivity. In the US, as of 2008, less than 2 % of the population directly work in agriculture. They not only supply the food needed for the other 98% of the population, but also make the US the biggest agricultural products exporter. Examples in other areas include programmable telephone switchboards replacing telephone operators, and automatic elevators replacing elevator operators.

This trend of machines replacing humans sped up in the last several decades, largely due to the invention of computers. So far, there have been three computer-led revolutions in technology. Each of these revolutions fundamentally affected existing business models and inspired new ways of doing business. We are now at the...

How to choose a proper use case

With so much speculation about blockchain technology and its potential impacts on existing business models, it is a time to be realistic.  In Gartner's most recent Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies report, blockchain is said to have entered the trough of disillusionment phase, the third phase of the company's hype cycle metric, as shown in the following screenshot:

 

Between Q4 2017 and Q1 2018, the price of 1 BTC reached above 19K and then quickly dropped down 10k in a matter of days. It is 3.4K on December 11, 2018. This eye-popping roller-coaster in BTC price has led to the cooling down of frantic speculations on cryptocurrencies and consequently a reduction in investment in cryptocurrency projects. In addition, the limitations of the technology are also a factor, making the technology unsuitable for certain use cases. A well known issue is the low rate of transactions per second (TPS) inherited by most blockchain platforms from Bitcoin, as discussed in...

DApp use case – healthcare data sharing

In this subsection, we look at one use case in more detail and talk about steps leading to the implementation of a DApp. The use case of healthcare data sharing will be examined further. Here, only ideas are discussed, which are not necessarily implementable. Most of the discussions focus on business and architectural considerations.  

The business problem

Before getting to implementing a DApp, one should start with the business problem by asking questions such as What are the challenges or the pain points? In the case of healthcare data, examples of challenges are as follows:

• Digitization: Many patients' medical records are available only on paper. This is particularly true for family physician offices, which are usually small. When a patient visits a physician's office, it is still a common scene for a doctor's office receptionist to search the file cabinets and pull out a folder with the patient's medical history. The records are then handed over to...

Summary

As was the case for the internet in the nineties, blockchain is at the dawn of the Blockchain age. This technology will disrupt existing business models and give birth to new models. It will inspire the emergence of community economies built on a blockchain network, where every participant makes contributions to, and receives benefits from, the community. There is no longer a single entity that controls and receives dividends from the economy.

In this chapter, we have discussed use cases across industries to give you a flavor of potential blockchain applications. Given the limitations of the existing technology, not all these cases can be immediately implemented. As the technology progresses, more use cases can be tackled. Finally, we talked about important factors to be considered in selecting a proper use case and the steps to be followed in developing a complete DApp through an in-depth discussion on the healthcare data sharing use case.