Blockchain is taking the industry by storm and only continues to rise in popularity. Lately, with all of the new emerging technologies, it is hard to understand where each kind of technology is in its development process. No need to worry because Aragon Research has recently published The Aragon Research Technology Arc™ for Blockchain, 2021, a report that lays out the current state of important blockchain technologies and provides a list of vendors companies should keep their eye on.
In the report, we identify blockchain technologies that are emerging in the market, blockchain technologies that are being adopted as a product category, and blockchain technologies that have been mature and have been deployed for some time.
This blog will take a closer look at three blockchain technologies identified in the “emerge” portion of the Technology Arc that are changing enterprise workflows. The “emerge” section of this report is crucial to understand because emerging technologies present opportunities for early adopters to jump on potentially transformative new products. But first, let’s identify and understand what blockchain is and how it has evolved beyond just finance.
The Aragon Research Technology Arc for Blockchain, 2021
Blockchain Is…
In the simplest of terms, Blockchain is a decentralized ledger. Blockchain is a list of all of your transactions in a private or public peer-to-peer network. Blockchain technology is also very important and valuable for transaction security. It can be used for identification and verification with its strong cryptography that chains together blocks of transactions, which makes it very difficult to tamper with transaction records. Digital money, such as Bitcoin, is not the same thing as blockchain – but it does utilize blockchain technology.
Use Cases for Blockchain
Blockchain is not just being used for finance anymore. It has proven to be valuable in finance because it creates a list of all of an organization’s transactions and prevents them from being tampered with. Because of blockchain’s strong cryptography, it has grown to be impactful for many types of security within organizations because it can authenticate and secure data. With new emerging technologies, blockchain can also change the management of business data by authenticating and shifting away from centralized databases to distributed peer-to-peer networks, which can ultimately streamline business processes. Blockchain is changing and it’s time for companies to notice and take advantage of the new opportunities.
Three Emerging Blockchain Technologies
Three emerging blockchain technologies to keep your eye on are smart contracts, blockchain-based notary, and blockchain in healthcare. Here’s why:
1 Smart Contracts with Blockchain
We have talked about managing contracts with AI before, specifically within the DTM market, but smart contracts supported by blockchain can decrease human error and increase productivity even more by eliminating unnecessary time between parties involved. Smart contracts are a way to automatically create an enforceable contract through code. Specifically with blockchain, contracts can be created in a decentralized environment with bots managing and enforcing the contract instead of humans. Instead of the interpretation of humans, contracts will be executed by software. This could be a game changer in industries like real estate and finance.
2. Blockchain-Based Notary
Due to blockchain’s security and data storage properties, it can increase the efficiency of notary processes and create bulletproof legal documents and storage. Blockchain can streamline transactions between two parties and make sure that legal notaries are stored in a secure location that cannot be stolen. However, it’s important to note that the use of blockchain with notaries will be determined by local rules and regulations.
3. Blockchain in Healthcare
Blockchain is being used in healthcare to solve problems with data, security, and logistics. With data, blockchain could be utilized to categorize the necessary data of patients in a more efficient and tamperproof way. This will enable patient data to become more universal and transferable across all healthcare providers. Not only can blockchain help organize patient data, it can also organize more comprehensive sets of data such as public health information about populations. This could revolutionize customer service in the healthcare industry.
In healthcare, patients provide a lot of confidential and sensitive information. With blockchain’s tamper-proof technology, healthcare organizations can help protect their patients data from security breaches and cyber attacks.
Blockchain is growing fast and these are only 3 out of the many fast growing, emerging blockchain technologies.
Bottom Line
Key your eye on blockchain technologies. Soon enough, the blockchain technologies that are in the “emerge” arc will move to the “adapt” arc in about 1-3 years and will be accepted as a product category. Blockchain continues to evolve to produce technologies that will be impactful for your organization and the market. To learn about more emerging blockchain technologies or about adapted and matured blockchain technologies, take a look at The Aragon Research Technology Arc™ for Blockchain, 2021.