Blockchain technology can help enormously in banks, insurance, the pharmaceutical and health industry, the supply chain of many sectors (agribusiness, luxury, international trade, distribution, wine, aeronautics and automobile), music industry, energy and real estate. Blockchains have the potential to replace most centralized “trusted third parties”, including banking businesses, notaries, land registries, and so on. by distributed computer systems.
1. Medicines / Pharmacy
Blockchain technology can be used to improve the integrity of drugs. If drugs can be clearly identified and traced from production to consumption, up to a million lives could be saved each year. Because DHL is already working with Accenture to establish a track and trace serialization system based on blockchain technology.
“At this time, there are already more than 7 billion unique pharmaceutical serial numbers in the system. In addition, the system can now handle more than 1,500 transactions per second,” said Scott Allison, president of DHL, Healthcare.
Allison doesn’t just have system capacity in mind. For example, trace and trace serialization should reduce costs, increase security and trust, and eliminate error-prone data movement. Technology can add additional verified information to the item, which cannot be tampered with. Validation is performed by all participants.
“THE SYSTEM DOES NOT ONLY MEET THE GLOBAL REQUIREMENTS FOR SERIALIZATION, IT EVEN EXCEEDS THEM,” says Allison.
2. Fashion / Fashion
The CGS project enables consumers to track the complete life cycle of a garment. This brings together companies from the fashion, apparel and consumer goods sectors to work together. With this solution, consumers no longer need to blindly trust the value of sustainable fashion. Blockchain technology allows the monitoring of the sustainability and compliance of the garment.
3. Cross-border payments
In developing and underdeveloped countries, access to capital for small food producers is often a big problem. Binkabi is a cross-border agricultural trade platform that is breaking new ground with the help of a block bridge solution from Sweet Bridge. Therefore, a system for fair trade in commodities will be developed.
IBM recently announced a blockchain banking solution. This is aimed at making international payments faster and more profitable.
4. Food safety
In the area of food safety, IBM is working with food manufacturers Dole, Nestlé and Walmart. Therefore, data from breeders, suppliers, processors, traders, retailers not only for all parties involved but also for supervisory authorities and consumers are available. Therefore, each transaction can be tracked and all the information about the food can be viewed. Since all members of the food system have access to the blockchain, contaminated food can be quickly removed from the production and supply chain before it hits the shelves.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) “tracks” fish and shellfish using blockchain technology. In this project, technology should help in the fight against illegal fishing. However, full traceability of fish and shellfish is also of interest to fish wholesalers and retailers, as they want to prevent their products or brands from being associated with illegal activities.
“CONSUMERS ARE ALSO PENDING MORE FISH AND SEAFOOD THAT ARE NOT ILLEGALLY FISHED,” says Bubba Cook, WWF Western Central Pacific Tuna Program Manager.
5. Humanitarian crises
Blockchain technology is not only used by companies. The United Nations currently uses blockchain technology in 16 areas, including:
World Food Program (Aid to Refugees)
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (donor funding, safeguarding and monitoring of supply chains)
Additionally, research is currently under way on how blockchain technology can be used to address current issues, such as child trafficking, according to Mahrinah von Schlegel, CEO of Nonprofit Embassy 2.0.
As part of the ID2020 public-private partnership, Microsoft and Accenture have announced a partnership. The goal is to provide 1.1 billion people with a legal form of identity and identification using blockchain technology.
6. Jewels
In collaboration with Everledger, jewelry company Brilliant Earth intends to use blockchain technology to accurately trace the origin of diamonds and other gemstones. This ensures that only conflict-free stones are processed.