blockchain in the economy

Although the chain of blocks is closely related to new crypto currencies or cryptocurrencies, it is logical to ask if this system is valid for other types of transactions, and the answer is a resounding yes.

In fact that is what the Ethereum platform, which has its own chain of blocks (you can check out at sites like Etherscan.io) and its own currency, called Ether, is trying to achieve from its inception. Unlike bitcoin, the transactions here are smart contracts - programmers love this concept - which can be more or less complex and allow defining all types of transactions.

As with bitcoin, the good thing about transactions is what remains in the chain of blocks, unalterable and accessible throughout the life of that chain of blocks. If we go to the extreme, Ethereum could replace any intermediary, substituting products and services that depend on third parties to be totally decentralized.

Of course, this is just one of the alternatives that originated with the block chain as a protagonist, and in fact there are many ideas that try to exploit the guarantees of a technology that has a virtually unlimited scope. Let's see some examples:

• R3 consortium: the very financial entities that many are trying to replace with Bitcoin or Ethereum have created the R3 consortium to find out how to take advantage of the chain of blocks in traditional financial systems. One of the first problems in the application of this scheme is the anonymity provided by the design of the block chain, something that has been solved with the so-called "authorized ledger", a very peculiar variant of the chain of bitcoin blocks, for example, that does identify users that add blocks and that makes system transactions can only be consulted by certain parties.

• Registration of properties: the Japanese government has initiated a project to unify the entire register of urban and rural properties with block chain technology, which would allow for an open database in which the data of the 230 million could be consulted of farms and 50 million buildings that are estimated to exist in the Asian country. In Dubai they are planning something very similar.

• Payments in the real world: a startup called TenX has created a prepaid card that can be reloaded with different crypto currencies and then pay with it anywhere as if that card had conventional money, regardless of whether that establishment accepts or not this type of coins virtual.

• Carsharing: the company EY, subsidiary of Ernst & Young Global Ltd is developing a system based on the chain of blocks that allows companies or groups of people to access a service to share cars easily. The so-called Tesseract would allow to register who owns the vehicle, the user of that vehicle and generate costs based on insurance and other transactions in this type of services.

• Cloud storage: storage services are usually centralized in a specific provider, but Storj wants to decentralize this service to improve security and reduce dependence on that storage provider.

• Digital identity: the last and gigantic security failures and data theft have made the management of our identities become a very real problem. The chain of blocks could provide a unique system to achieve validating identities in an irrefutable, safe and immutable way. There are many companies developing services in this field, and all of them believe that applying blockchain technology for this purpose is an optimal solution.

• Music: although there are critics who affirm that this option does not have validity, some affirm that the musical distribution could undergo a whole revolution if a system based on the chain of blocks was managed to manage its reproduction, distribution and enjoyment. The very Spotify is betting heavily on its own chain of blocks.

• Public / governmental services: another of the most interesting areas of the application of the chain of blocks is in public services that could thus boast absolute transparency. The areas of activity are multiple: from the management of licenses, transactions, events, movement of resources and payments, property management to identity management. In fact, the massive theft of data in Equifax has led some to propose the replacement of social security numbers in the United States with a system based on the block chain. There are even initiatives to "decentralize government", and Bitnation is one of those projects that try to call us becoming "citizens of the world".

• Social security and health: although it could be included within the aforementioned public services, public health could undergo a real revolution with a block chain system that would register all types of medical records and solve one of the classic problems of management of health.

• Management of authorship: although related to what is mentioned for the world of music, Ascribe is a platform that tries to help creators and artists to attribute the authorship of their works through the chain of blocks. There are many other platforms in this area (Bitproof, Blockai, Stampery, for example) that among other things allow you to generate stores in which you can buy original works in a safe and simple way.

There are only some examples of the application of the block chain to all types of areas, but there are many more: the versatility of this technology is so huge that it is difficult to think of an area that can not be transformed by this idea.
At the moment, yes, all these ideas are only projects in full development, so the revolution, although possible, seems distant, especially when intermediaries (in all areas) have become an integral part of the economy and society.

Decentralizing all these industries is much more complex than it seems, especially because those same intermediaries will try to reject these changes or adapt them to their own needs.

Reference: https://www.xataka.com/especiales/que-es-blockchain-la-explicacion-definitiva-para-la-tecnologia-mas-de-moda