In 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto, the alias of the person who created Bitcoin, announced the launch of the world’s first digital currency. Nakamoto believed that the invention would have a strong impact on the future of the financial industry. However, the biggest impact isn’t being caused by bitcoin. The change is driven by blockchain, the secure ledger technology behind it – and blockchain is disrupting every industry. Blockchain was originally intended to make it more secure to process bitcoin transactions. However, the technology is currently being used in a number of other applications from copyright protection to payroll management.
How is Blockchain Changing the World?
Most people are familiar with blockchain technology because of its use with bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The technology was designed to facilitate the bitcoin platform’s promise for both security and anonymity in online commerce. Since its conception with bitcoin, blockchain has grown as a technology independent of its original use with cryptocurrencies. Here we will illustrate seven ways businesses are currently using blockchain technology.
1. Payroll Solutions
Since blockchain technology was designed to handle monetary transactions, we would be remiss if we didn’t include the use of this technology to process payroll payments to employees. Some companies have made it possible to make payments to employees using cryptocurrencies. Futurice is one of the organizations that is discussing the role of blockchain in payroll management. They recently interviewed Juho Vähä-Herttua is a senior technologist and active member of the Spice Open Source program about the role of blockchain in payroll management. “Some people report contributions every month, some once a year, some never. The popularity has been on the rise though and we haven’t had any automation in handling these reports. It’s been slowly becoming a time-consuming chore to collect all the data at the end of the month and report them to payroll. So Juho had an idea, let’s use Ethereum blockchain to store the relevant hour reports to do the payroll calculation. In fact, let’s go a step further and do the payroll calculation on the blockchain as well.”
2. Smart Contracts
While the term smart contract precedes the creation of blockchain, this technology has undoubtedly improved the application of the intelligent deal. Intelligent contracts are essentially programs developed to automate steps outlined in a contracted in a manner described in that contract.
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3. Election Processes
When internal voting is done within a company, and the security of the system is of the utmost importance, blockchain technology is a viable solution. The accuracy, safety, and neutrality of blockchain technology make it the perfect way to improve the voting process within businesses easily.
4. Blockchain Used in the Hiring Process
Hiring is the heart and soul of every business. The staff makes the company operate, and recruiting the right talent for a specific position can be quite a time-consuming challenge. Incorporating an automated recruiting system can save time and money on the recruitment process.
5. Payment Processing
It is abundantly clear that blockchain is an extremely secure process perfect for secure financial transactions of any type. It is for this reason that the use of blockchain in payment processing for a company’s operations is a way to embrace the blockchain technology for its privacy and ease.
6. Blockchain and Accounting
Blockchain provides a trustworthy process within accounting that can benefit the accounting process as a whole. The trickle-down effect of the integration of various aspects of modern accounting like integrity assurance of individual records and audit trails paves the way for fully automated audits. The automation of the accounting process in this way is made possible by the application of blockchain technology in accounting. Blockchain technology helps reduce errors and make the accounting process much more natural to automate.
7. Data Backup
Blockchain presents some wonderful features for data backup. While cloud technology current is recognized as the premier means to backup data, it is not immune to attack by hackers in the same fashion that blockchain is. Utilization of blockchain technology as backup storage for cloud data centers will offer a feasible solution for security concerns regarding backup data.
Blockchain is Changing Technology Forever!
The applications of blockchain technology are limited only to the imagination. We have no idea what the future holds for blockchain technology. The possibilities are vast and ever-expanding, and due to the increased popularity, poised to be used in many more creative and beneficial ways.