It has taken almost 10 centuries for the next big disruption in the way transaction ledgers are created. In the 11th century, the double entry bookkeeping system changed how a ledger was maintained and now many centuries later, blockchain has the potential to revolutionize how systems of records are maintained.
To demystify blockchain and describe it in extremely simple words, it is nothing but a ledger which has the following characteristics:
- Distributed & decentralized
- Immutable – write once, read many times
- Mathematically verified
The above properties enable blockchain to maintain a list of records with a very high level of trust without the need for a central authority to authenticate the transactions. Blockchain enables the programmatic authentication of records using certain mathematical algorithms that are completely tamper proof.
Use Cases
The World Economic Forum predicts that 10% of the world’s GDP would be on the blockchain by as early as 2025. Blockchain is already being used in some capacity across a plethora of industries and there are new use cases that are being developed constantly. While Government, Payments and Supply Chain are obvious use cases, there is evidence in unusual ones as well, like Media rights, Energy Exchanges, Telecom, e-Commerce and something as unusual as LGBT rights.
Some notable use cases are:
Supply Chain – A leading consulting company and one of the largest retailers in the world have partnered to create a blockchain project to monitor food safety.
Healthcare – A leading company in the US has become a pioneer in storing patient health records in electronic form using the principles of blockchain.
Cyber Security – A European country is facilitating blockchain based voter registration to establish unique and tamper proof user identities. Similar use cases are being developed for user authenticity in various government sectors.
Telecom – Leading telecom operators are deploying Blockchain technologies for roaming settlement and fraud prevention – which is expected to save Telcos billions of dollars annually.
Insurance – A leading Insurance company is looking to leverage blockchain technology and meet their SLAs of claims for recall products while providing a smoother experience to their customers.
Key Challenges
Just like any new technology that carries with it the potential of changing the way things are done, blockchain also comes with its fair share of challenges. As organizations prepare to experiment with blockchain and build unique use-cases, they must be aware of the following challenges:
Performance & Efficiency
- Less than optimal performance due to consensus algorithm
- Infrastructure challenges
- Need to create multiple copies
Interoperability
- Interoperability between traditional databases and blockchain
- Interoperability between multiple blockchains
Reliability & Security
- Vulnerability of end points
- Lack of established standards and regulations
- Security risks in partner organization
Technology Ecosystem
A successful blockchain implementation requires:
- Distributed Ledger
- High Performance & Scalable Infrastructure
- Efficient Network Layer
- Faster Consensus Algorithms
- Smart Contracts
- Applications
- Analytics and Insights
The Happiest Minds Advantage
Happiest Minds brings in a deep understanding of the blockchain ecosystem to enable our customers to develop solutions and implement blockchain based solutions that help create incremental business value.
Using a consultative approach, we work together with organizations in understanding their unique requirements to advise our clients about the right technology, architecture or algorithms to deploy for blockchain implementations.
We have enabled our clients to deploy blockchain based solutions across –
- Trust centric supply chain environments
- Network security and infrastructure configurations
- Smart contracts for peer to peer transactions in Fintech
Our services come with a strong focus on cyber security coupled with our core expertise in deploying and managing cloud and on-premise IT infrastructures that form the building blocks of Blockchain Platform as a service.
