Review of the top 10 blockchain applications in the past year, including food, clothing, housing and transportation

We bid farewell to the old and ushered in the new, bidding farewell to 2016 and welcoming 2017. 2016 is a very important year for the popularization and development of blockchain technology. More and more companies are beginning to explore ways to use blockchain technology, and more and more companies are beginning to study and implement blockchain applications.

Next, we will review the application scenarios of blockchain technology in 2016. This article selects 10 fields where blockchain technology is relatively mature and selects one representative application for each.

1. Internet of Things

Blockchain has great potential for application in the field of Internet of Things. Existing problems in the Internet of Things, such as the possibility of malicious attacks on automotive systems, the need to strengthen the security of house entry systems, and the security challenges of the Internet can be well solved by blockchain. Huobi Blockchain Research Center learned that IBM and Samsung recently proposed a proof of concept for ADEPT (Automatic Decentralized Peer-to-Peer Telemetry Technology), using a blockchain database to establish a distributed device network (a decentralized Internet of Things), with ADEPT providing a secure and low-cost way to connect devices. According to the feasibility execution report, home appliances, such as dishwashers, can execute a "smart contract" to issue commands to detergent suppliers to deliver goods. These contracts give the device the ability to pay for orders and receive payment confirmation information and shipping information from retailers. This information will be notified to the dishwasher owner in the form of a mobile phone ring reminder.

2. E-commerce

The application of blockchain in e-commerce is represented by OpenBazaar. This is an open source project that aims to create a decentralized and unconstrained peer-to-peer e-commerce network using Bitcoin. The platform is different from its peers. Instead of visiting shopping websites, the platform can be downloaded and directly connect users with other people who are looking for buyers or sellers of goods and services. Huobi Blockchain Research Center learned that consumers will now be able to use a variety of digital assets besides Bitcoin to shop on OpenBazaar.

3. Authentication

BitNation is a system that applies blockchain technology to citizen governance issues. Recently, BitNation announced that it had written 140 lines of code using Ethereum smart contracts to establish the world's first virtual, borderless, decentralized, autonomous national constitution. Founded by Susanne Tarkowski Tempelhof, the organization advocates for borderless governance and has established its own virtual nation. To legitimize this claim, it has built a set of tools and services that may one day even allow people to replace their national identity with a blockchain identity. Of course, the premise is that other geographically defined countries recognize blockchain as a secure and legal repository for government records, then this feat will be possible. Huobi Blockchain Research Center learned that on December 1, 2016, an Estonian couple got married not in front of a priest or judge, but through the almighty blockchain, a distributed global computing and data storage technology.

4. Social Communications

The representative product of blockchain in the field of social communication is Twister, which is a decentralized social network and an alternative to Twitter. In theory, no one or organization can shut it down. Moreover, on Twister, other users do not know whether you are online, your IP address, or who you follow. This is a deliberate design to protect user privacy. Users can still use Twister to publish public information, but private information sent by users to others is encrypted and protected. The encryption method is commonly used by LavaBit. LavaBit is the email service provider used by Snowden. Huobi Blockchain Research Center learned that other alternatives to Twitter and Facebook, such as Pump.io, Identica and Diaspora, require users to run their own servers or trust someone to run a server. Twister is more like peer-to-peer file sharing software: run Twister, it can connect to other users. No central server is required, and it is very easy to use.

5. Notarization and anti-counterfeiting

Factom uses Bitcoin's blockchain technology to revolutionize data management and data recording in the business community and government departments. It can also be understood as an irrevocable publishing system. Once the data in the system is released, it is irrevocable, providing an accurate, verifiable, and tamper-proof audit trail record. Blockchain technology is used to help the development of a variety of applications, including audit systems, medical information records, supply chain management, voting systems, property deeds, legal applications, financial systems, etc. Factom said that this blockchain system will bring the real-time data they need to medical staff and hospitals. For example, a medical professional can get information through a smartphone and view the baby's vaccination record. Or people infected with HIV can access their viral load measurement results through the Factom blockchain.

6. File Storage

Storj is an open source object storage platform similar to AWS S3 or Microsoft Azure Blob Storage. Storj hopes to make object storage easier to use through intuitive tools and documentation, a modern API and an open source try-before-you-buy approach. But in fact, all of this is mainly due to the power of blockchain. You can think of Storj as a distributed cloud storage network, suitable for storing static content today, but the future of object storage is far more than that. This blockchain-based decentralization allows developers to store data in a secure, high-performance and cheap way, spreading the data across many nodes. As for the security of data, the blockchain approach means that each file is shredded, encrypted with your own key, and then spread across the network until you are ready to use it again. When you need to retrieve it, the files will be decrypted and quickly and seamlessly reassembled. By definition, Storj does not need to build or operate data centers, so capital expenditures are minimal, thereby reducing storage costs. Huobi Blockchain Research Center learned that Storj's storage costs are half of other cloud storage competitors, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS). Storj’s peer-to-peer architecture also enables downloading of data from these different shards in parallel, allowing Storj to fully utilize your download connection rather than relying on inefficient single-source downloads.

7. Prediction Market

Augur is a decentralized prediction market platform built on the Ethereum platform. Compared with traditional prediction markets, the biggest difference of Augur is its globalization and decentralization. Anyone around the world can use Augur, which will bring unprecedented liquidity, trading volume, and multiple perspectives and topics that traditional exchanges have never had. With Augur, anyone can create a prediction market for any topic of interest (such as who will win the US election) and provide initial liquidity, which is a decentralized process. In return, the creator of the market will receive half of the transaction fees from the market. Huobi Blockchain Research Center learned that ordinary users can predict and buy and sell stocks of events on Augur based on their own information and judgment, such as the US presidential election. When the event occurs, if you predict correctly and hold stocks with the correct results, you will receive $1 per share, so your profit is $1 minus the original purchase cost. If you predict incorrectly and hold stocks with the wrong results, you will not receive a reward, so your loss is the original purchase cost.

8. Asset Trading

On December 16, online retail giant Overstock successfully closed its first round of fundraising through its first-of-its-kind fundraising method: issuing stocks on the blockchain. Huobi Blockchain Research Center learned that the stock offering raised a total of $10.9 million, of which $1.9 million came from traders on the tØ blockchain platform developed by Overstock subsidiary Medici. tØ is the application of the Bitcoin blockchain in the financial field. All of tØ's technology is built on a distributed, cryptographically protected ledger that can be accessed and reviewed by anyone, ensuring fairness throughout the market. It can eliminate unnecessary middlemen in traditional trading markets. Stocks traded on the blockchain platform can achieve real-time settlement, while investors who choose traditional exchanges need to wait for three days for post-trade processing. Blockchain stocks also prevent third parties from intervening in transactions, after all, they are not the stock holders. Overstock has proven that stocks issued and traded on the blockchain can be settled in real time.

9. Cross-border payments

Using blockchain for cross-border payments has the advantages of being faster and less expensive. Cross-border payments based on blockchain are close to "real-time" and automatic, and can provide uninterrupted services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The remitter can quickly know whether the recipient has received the money, and thus understand whether there are delays or other problems with the payment. The application of blockchain technology in B2B cross-border payment and settlement business will reduce the cost of each transaction from about US$26 to US$15, of which about 75% is the payment network maintenance fee of the transit bank, and 25% is compliance, error investigation, and foreign exchange exchange costs. Huobi Blockchain Research Center learned that in October, 12 banks in the R3 blockchain alliance used Ripple technology for cross-border payment testing. In July, Ripple helped ATB Bank in Alberta, Canada and Reisebank in Germany complete the world's first cross-border remittance between banks based on blockchain technology: ATB paid $1,000 to Reisebank in 8 seconds, which would take 2 to 6 working days in the traditional mode. After the payment was completed, Reisebank received a confirmation email.

10. Music

DECENT is a digital content distribution platform powered by blockchain and peer-to-peer technology. Its goal is to reduce unnecessary fees and manipulation by the for-profit corporate monopolies and oligopolies that currently dominate the market. The platform uses blockchain technology to facilitate faster and more direct payments and gives authors control over the use of their data, with the flexibility to do anything in the event of a breach. Fees are shared in proportion to the creators' participation through cryptocurrency. DECENT is a protocol developed for creative individuals, authors, producers and publishers and their fans. The protocol allows sharing of any text, image, video or music content across borders. DECENT is a resource-rich and independent platform. Huobi Blockchain Research Center learned that DECENT information sharing is not controlled by anyone, including DECENT developers. It is driven by a P2P network and uses cryptography and blockchain technology for encryption, making information dissemination easier and safer. DECENT reconstructs the entire economic system of online publishing.

In 2016, we can clearly see that the attitudes towards blockchain have undergone tremendous changes from the government to enterprises and individuals. Blockchain technology has been enthusiastically pursued by various industries. We believe that blockchain will have greater development in 2017!