About once a year, blockchain technology seems to attract the attention of mainstream media and the public, and cause the value of cryptocurrencies to soar. After the current NFT hype cycle is over, there are signs that the commercial use case of the blockchain may become the next wave of investment.
In 2017, due to the ICO boom that led to projects raising hundreds of millions of dollars, blockchain and cryptocurrency became household names. In the summer of 2020, blockchain will become popular again due to DeFi. In early 2021, NFT became a hot topic and brought blockchain to unprecedented heights. Those who invested in these areas before have made huge gains, sometimes even more than 100 times the return on investment. Therefore, people have a lot of speculation about which industry or sector of the blockchain will attract public attention next. If it can be successfully discovered that early investors can earn enough money to retire, it is worthy of thorough research. Just look at Enjin Coin to know how big these gains can be. Enjin Coin was created during the ICO boom in 2017 and is an NFT platform.
One of the areas where blockchain has the greatest impact is enterprise and B2B applications, but so far there are few use cases in the real world. There are still many inefficient and traditional systems that cost companies billions of dollars each year. If these companies implement blockchain and smart contracts in their companies, these inefficiencies will disappear and profits will increase substantially. Let's look at a few examples to see what these inefficiencies are, how to solve them, and some examples of ongoing projects in these areas.
One of the most obvious areas of inefficiency that blockchain can solve is the legal and contractual process and related costs. Whenever a company, or even an individual, reaches a legally binding agreement, they will use lawyers or third-party escrow services and pay high fees to ensure that the agreement proceeds as planned. With smart contracts, these legal processes can be replaced by code, and anyone can cooperate with others without worrying about fraud or lack of trust. By eliminating these intermediaries who charge fees, companies can save a lot of money in transactions, and they will actually be encouraged to cooperate more, because they can bring more profits without spending any money.
Ethereum and other smart contract platforms will allow companies to automatically create and fulfill contracts. In addition, LTO Network is a project dedicated to improving the efficiency of European operations. They already have a platform that allows blockchain-based digital signatures, inspection reports, notarization services, and legal contracts. This can save millions or even billions of dollars for businesses all over the world, so LTO and related projects such as Ontology seem to have bright prospects.
Another area where almost every company can use blockchain is supply chain management. From natural resources to manufacturing to shelves, once a product is created, a series of steps need to be performed, and at each step, the company records the status of the product in the supply chain. Currently, every step in the supply chain process is centralized, and it is difficult to determine whether someone has made a fraudulent claim. In addition, due to centralization, supply chain data can be changed and manipulated after the fact, resulting in more fraudulent results. Since blockchain is decentralized and immutable, it solves this problem and will improve the transparency and security of enterprises.
VeChain is the largest project to create a blockchain-based supply chain management system. Their solutions are already in use in the real world. Some wine bottles have VeChain QR codes, which can accurately and transparently provide all information related to the wine bottle. Therefore, consumers can rest assured that the wine they buy is legal. This technology will also be popularized in other commodities and form a more transparent and efficient supply chain system.
The last use case is in the basic structure of the business. Most companies are managed by the board of directors, and all decisions of the company are made by the board of directors. Although this works well in some cases, it is not a democratic process. People who hold shares in the company have little say in the way they operate in day-to-day operations, nor can they add any real value to the company. On the other hand, the blockchain-based DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) is based on the following principle: everyone who owns shares in the company should have a say in the way the company operates, and they can all make suggestions or vote on governance decisions. Instead of setting up a board of directors, the salary of each director is as high as millions of dollars. This will create a fairer and more effective business model and incentivize shareholders to help the company increase its profits.
MetisDAO is a cryptocurrency project focused on this field. They make it easy for anyone to port their application or business to the DAO structure and benefit from it. Another project working in this ecosystem is DAO Maker, which acts as a startup incubator, allowing anyone to invest in the upcoming DAO.
Blockchain provides companies with billions of dollars in revenue. It is only a matter of time before it is adopted in order to reduce costs and increase profits. If this use case develops like ICO, DeFi, or NFT, there will be multiple multi-billion dollar projects to build these solutions, and those investors who are lucky enough to find these solutions first will be able to retire early.
