I have had my eye on blockchain for a few years, and came across a number of articles claiming that blockchain is a farce and that it doesn’t provide any benefits (I wrote about some of its benefits if you’re curious). Fast forward to the past few months, i’m seeing more positive articles about blockchain — most of which were about blockchain adoption. Also, LinkedIn announced that blockchain is the most in-demand hard skill for 2020, topping skills like cloud computing, scientific computing, A.I. and analytical reasoning!
The most recent articles were unsurprisingly more well-informed. During the long months of the cryptocurrency bear market (prices sunk in 2018 and still didn’t fully recover in 2019), blockchain and decentralized ledger technology (DLT) quietly enjoyed numerous cases of adoption by the world’s largest companies, and there are some cases of government adoption as well.
Regarding demand, LinkedIn said:
‘Blockchain has become a line of business for a who’s who of the corporate world — IBM, Oracle, JPMorgan Chase, Microsoft (LinkedIn’s parent company), Amazon, and American Express, to name just a few. Blockchain is now being used in industries ranging from shipping to healthcare, from farming and food safety to entertainment and gaming.’
Blockchain Adoption News
A few interesting (some high-profile) cases of blockchain adoption or involvement from large organizations and governments include:
- Microsoft deciding to launch a Decentralized Identifier (DID) system on Bitcoin’s blockchain. This helps to draw a little more attention to Bitcoin‘s capabilities outside of transferring tokens.
- Some Nevada counties trialed the Ethereum blockchain for digital marriage certificates.
- UBS decided to pilot a data reporting project on Ethereum.
- The Commonwealth Bank Of Australia (CBA) is using the Ethereum blockchain to develop digital biodiversity credits.
- Swedish banking giant Santander launched a blockchain bond that runs on the Ethereum blockchain.
- The European Central Bank (ECB) launched EUROchain.
- China launched a pilot of their blockchain-based cross-border financing, and have decided to expand it.
- AMD joined the Blockchain Game Alliance (BGA).
- The state of Delaware endorses the use of blockchain to store corporate records if they are electronic.
- German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development commissioned the Green Assets Wallet on the Chromia blockchain platform to issue and track green bonds and their impact.
Blockchain technology has multiple benefits depending on how it is implemented (I wrote about some of them here) that can minimize the incidence of data corruption, stop tampering and reveal it very easily, prevent the deletion of records that should not be deleted (crooks covering up their tracks), and reduce the likelihood of fraud. Most of these are tracking benefits that help to maintain a higher level of accountability and reduce fraud/data corruption.
