CIOInsider India Magazine
From Money to Music, Block chain will Transform & Disrupt Every Industry
As Managing Director at Ericsson Global Services India and Head of Global Services Center India, Amitabh is currently managing operations in the areas of R&D, product development, presales & sales support, services delivery and a number of global shared support functions.
I Bitcoin= Rs 646386.02. As I sit down to write, Bitcoin has just surpassed USD 10,000 for the first time, taking this year’s price surge to more than 10-fold even as warnings multiply that the largest digital currency is an asset bubble. The World Economic Forum has said that decentralized payments technologies like bitcoin could transform the “business architecture” of money transfers, which, due to reliance on central authorities such as banks and clearing houses, has remained static for the last 150+ years.
Bitcoin’s breaching of the USD 10,000 high water mark has been a defining moment in many ways. It has brought to fore a piece of technology that was once considered the exclusive domain of high end computer program developers, futurists and libertarians seeking to create an alternative to central bank controlled monetary systems the true democratization of finance and in fact every transaction.
The surge in bitcoin has also drawn our attention to its underlying concept of Blockchain which in fact is becoming the real disruptive force for every industry. Are Bitcoin and blockchain the same thing? No, they aren’t. However, they are closely related. When Bitcoin was released as open source code, blockchain was wrapped up together with it in the same solution.
Blockchain is not a solution by a mathematical concept which like mathematics itself is undeniable logic.
You are free to make your own software on this idea and still connect with the global network. Hire a developer and order your software now! Thousands of corporations across the world have implemented their own versions of this idea to hold internal transactions, specifically transactions which needed to be at arm's length.
The idea of Blockchain is that it is a digital ledger, shared among peers, making entries of
transactions among its agreed participants; entries that cannot be tampered with or altered. It increases trust, accountability, and transparency across business networks while streamlining business processes.
Blockchain is Not A Solution By a Mathematical Concept Which Like Mathematics It self is Undeniable Logic
Blockchain is not magic, but it does have the potential to dramatically transform how some of our business processes work it can make certain transactions more secure, rendering the record of that transaction tamper proof. Bitcoin's popularity is proving blockchain's usefulness in finance, but blockchain could transform many more industries. Ultimately, the use cases for a transparent, verifiable register of transaction data are practically endless especially since blockchain operates through a decentralized platform requiring no central supervision, while still remaining resistant to fraud.
The potential of Blockchain to disrupt the banking system comes first to mind and they are the intermediaries of financial transactions between individuals, organizations and even nations. Ironically banks are adopting the concept to revolutionize their operations even before they are disrupted. From a macro perspective, banks serve as the global storehouses and transfer hubs of value.
As a digitized, secure, and tamper proof ledger, block chain could serve the same function,injecting enhanced accuracy and information sharing into the financial services ecosystem. Swiss bank UBS and UK based Barclays are both experimenting with blockchain as a way to expedite back office functions and settlement, which some in the banking industry say could cut up to USD 20B in middleman costs.
Closely connected with banking and several key industry requirements is data security. Blockchain has the power to deliver almost bullet proof data authentication.
Though blockchain’s ledger is public, its data communications are sent and verified using advanced cryptographic techniques ensuring that data is coming from correct sources and that nothing is intercepted in the interim. One way blockchain reduces conventional cyber security risk is by simply removing the need for human intermediaries thus lessening the threat of hacking, corruption, or human error.
Creative people like musicians are also turning to blockchain to make content sharing fairer for creators using smart contracts. Also known as a crypto contracts, it is a computer program that directly controls the transfer of digital currencies or assets between parties under certain conditions. A smart contract not only defines the rules and penalties around an agreement in the same way that a traditional contract does, but it can also automatically enforce those obligations. These contracts are stored on blockchain technology. This will transform the legal system and the way for drawing up contracts and maybe even the legal profession. The very basis on good customer service is a contract between the buyer and the seller with a promise to perform a certain task or deliver something in exchange of an agreed compensation.
In the coming days, there will be hardly any industry that will not be disrupted or transformed, depending on your point of view, by Blockchain. We have a choice of being over whelmed by the coming waves or learning how to ride the surf; and the time to do it is right now.
