2020 has shown the rapid development and implementation of blockchain technologies, especially in the field of finance. And we are talking here not only and not so much about the price of bitcoin, which has overcome several significant marks, but also about the active use of corporate blockchain technologies in public networks, with open-source code etc.
You can read more about blockchain technologies at oschain.io – a blog about blockchain, but now let’s take a look at some of the main trends of the past year, which can give impetus to the further spread of blockchain technology and the growth of its popularity.
Development of the Internet of Value (IoV)
The term “Internet of Value” was coined by Don Tapscott, the founder of the Blockchain Research Institute. During a 2016 TED Talk, Tuspcott suggested that it would soon become normal for digital assets, including works of art, music, and more, to be transferred over the blockchain network similarly as cryptocurrencies. The advantages of this method are that the system cannot be hacked, and the data in it cannot be changed.
Today we see how Tapscott prediction becomes reality – this process is called “tokenization”. It allows sending financial assets to network participants, guaranteeing their immutability, authenticity and the fact that all parties receive information at the same time, ensuring transparency of transactions and increasing the level of trust.
The financial sector is far from the only “user” of tokenization. In 2020, Ernst & Young Canada, together with the NGO Canadian Blood Services, decided to test the concept of using tokenization to optimize blood supply chains. The supply process itself involves the collection of a large amount of data, including information about the donor, the place and conditions of blood donation, and the receipt of plasma and antibodies.
All of them must be tracked in great detail in order to prevent loss or shortage of material. To solve these issues, Ernst & Young Canada used a private network based on the Ethereum blockchain to track data from Canadian Blood Services and created an improved version of the blood audit trail and related materials.
These described examples are some of the first cases of using tokenization, but it is already clear that commercial and non-profit organizations and enterprises are interested in using blockchain.
In 2020, on the initiative of Microsoft, IBM and Hyperledger, was created the Interwork Alliance NGO, whose main task is to develop standards for tokenized ecosystems. The IWA (Interwork Alliance) focuses on token use cases for sustainable development and trade finance and analyzes multilateral contracts using artificial intelligence.
Supply chain changes
The most popular use case for blockchain technology today is using it for the supply chain management. In 2016, IBM announced the creation of the Food Trust Network, which launched two years later. With its help, large retailers like Walmart were able to track food throughout the entire supply chain, starting with the manufacturer. To create the platform, IBM used a private blockchain network based on Hyperledger Fabric.
Other organizations followed IBM’s lead, and the COVID-19 pandemic that began in late 2019 further accelerated the trend. This led to the launch of a blockchain platform for tracking user health data in March 2020 by WHO.
The IBM and Maersk TradeLens platform is another example of the implementation of distributed ledger technologies in the supply chain of goods. Container carriers use the electronic bill of lading to exchange information within the network, the transportation data has become transparent, and this increases the level of trust between the participants in the chain.
In addition, blockchain is already being used in clinical trials and is being successfully implemented in pharmaceutical supply chains. In a number of areas, it is necessary to wait until the regulatory requirements become more specific, but the trends of 2020 indicate that all differences will soon be resolved.
Public vs private
Over the past few years, blockchain has established a reputation as a closed, expensive and private network that only very large players such as Walmart can afford access to. However, the 2020 statistic refutes this claim and tells us that public blockchains like Ethereum can be a great alternative for enterprise users.
In December 2019, a post was published on the Ernst & Young blog, in which the authors detailed why public blockchains will push back private ones in the future, and they will turn into obsolete tool. And although the latter is still actively used, the number of companies preferring open blockchain is growing.
What is the reason for this trend?
First of all, the benefits of public blockchains. For example, Ethereum offers very attractive privacy and security solutions for its users. A guarantee of transparency and, at the same time, the safety of information can be a very advantageous offer for a number of companies. It can be used to build business scenarios such as underlying protocol, zero-knowledge cryptography, and coordination of complex and confidential workflows.
The boom in the decentralized finance sector in 2020 has spurred the development of corporate DeFi. Today analysts expect significant changes related, first of all, to account tokenization. Moving financial assets becomes cheaper and easier, as seen in the example of Coke One North America, where the tokenization process has already started. In addition, DeFi protocols are quite capable of creating programmable digital securities, but in order to develop this direction, it is necessary to define clear standards and rules in the industry.
Source code blockchain
Hyperledger developers were among the first to demonstrate how important open source is for enterprise use. It is an important part of the entire blockchain ecosystem, and today a number of projects are actively following this trend. For example, Hyperledger is at the heart of the CryptoVeche corporate voting system.
Publication for the public use of basic protocols accelerates the adoption of public blockchains and enables third-party developers to contribute to a particular project. This is what the Bitfinex crypto exchange did, uploading its protocol to GitHub in June 2020 and allowing users to freely exchange media on the decentralized network.
The use of open-source code also requires certain standards for this area of application. OASIS Open is a non-profit organization that is responsible for the development of standards for open source in blockchain projects that will allow actively promoting open source enterprise protocols in the future and will contribute to the development of the blockchain ecosystem.