Launching your startup might be a life-changing decision affecting your entire career path. That is why selecting a proper field for it is a decision of crucial importance. It is not an easy choice. There are so many industries and target audiences, numerous consumer demands, and countless ‘next big things’. And we do not have an ultimate answer to this question.
But we, as a company uniting business and technology, have a helpful hint. It is a hint that can be adapted for an entire range of industries while giving you lucrative perspectives across all of them. Namely, base your startup on blockchain technology. It looks like the right time to win with it.
Blockchain: Essence and Implications
Let us start with a commonplace remark. In a nutshell, blockchain technology is an endless list of records that are linked with each other cryptographically. Every block ‘carries’ a hash of the preceding one, transaction-related info, and a timestamp. Such a foundation makes blockchain inherently immune to data manipulations. If you want to modify a certain block, you need to change all the successive ‘bricks’, which is impossible.
Correspondingly, in lay terms, blockchain is a dispersed ‘database’ with interrelated and yet independent ‘carries’ capable of keeping info safe and verifiable. Perpetually.
Why should I care?
Initially, during the first widely publicized Bitcoin spike in 2017, blockchain was proclaimed the king of tomorrow. Everyone seemed to be talking about it and how it would change the world around us. As we all know, such assumptions were too optimistic.
Just as the Forbes Technology Council observed in 2018, blockchain was ‘just beginning to find its footing in the larger economy.’ This process is still far from completion. Blockchain is changing the world around us, gradually, but steadily. So you should care about it if you want to capitalize on this growth.
Applying Blockchain to Reality: Beyond Just Cryptocurrencies
We know the world of blockchain. Like many other companies, we mainly work with cryptocurrencies. For example, we developed a coin integration hub for non-custodial wallets and our Everchain White Label Wallet.
However, with our expertise and hands-on experience, we know that blockchain is more than just cryptocurrencies and wallets. It is potentially boundless in terms of usage. You can find a compelling list of such areas with good potential below.
Retail
Right now, the e-retail industry is dominated by such marketplace giants as Amazon, eBay, Alibaba, etc. They offer their well-established infrastructure and guarantee some security. At the same time, the conditions they offer to their partners are not always the best possible ones.
Therefore, there is an opposite trend as well. Such players as smaller companies willing to get direct access to their customers, middle platforms, and even individuals (C2C) are already interested in alternative channels and solutions. And blockchain comes to the rescue here.
As Deloitte UK points out in its recent report, blockchain offers all the features for a more decentralized retail industry, while compensating for the obvious lack of resources associated with giant companies:
– it is almost real-time
– it is immutable and irreversible
– it is transparent and reliable
– finally, it is easily and instantly available
One can also name several projects that use these technologies serving individuals and smaller businesses in retail. For example, OpenBazaar, a ‘free online marketplace’ with virtually no fees connecting real people.
Sharing
Another obvious field of application is ride-sharing. The story here resembles the retail industry. What if a blockchain-based solution could put some competitive pressure on aggregators, such as Uber? Well, smart contracts, peer-to-peer connections, and reliable identification make it possible. As an example, one can cite the examples of the dacsee project in Malaysia and Chasyr, a decentralized platform for ride-sharing.
Internet Marketing and Advertising
Another field of application is digital ads. For years, this industry has been negatively affected by never-ending fraud, low satisfaction rates, and lack of transparency. Advertisers are rarely sure what they are spending their budgets on: it is always too easy to ‘create’ fake performance figures on the Internet. Can blockchain change that?
Probably, it will, very soon. At least, one can already name such a player as Adshares, a decentralized advertising ecosystem. They promise to ‘connect publishers and advertisers to let them make direct deals’, which sounds quite promising.
Cloud computing
Finally, the most obvious field for aspiring blockchain entrepreneurs is cloud computing. What if users and companies could afford to share – or to rent out – computing powers with each other? Well, such a mechanism is already at your service. Meet Golem, a startup that serves this very purpose: uniting numerous devices and computing capacities into something super big.
Conclusion
These 4 fields are a very narrow picture of what blockchain is capable of right now. Banking, real-estate, IoT, storage all can be – and are likely to be – revolutionized very soon. It is up to you, to which portion of this transformation you will contribute. As for us, we will be glad to cooperate on any project you might be thinking about now at Evercode Lab.
