Blockchain is needed wherever speed and reliability of data transfer are important – that is, in virtually every area of our lives: in smart contracts for the supply of goods, in checking the results of electronic voting, or in the operation of any cryptocurrency, such as bitcoin.
Cryptocurrency
Any cryptocurrency works on the blockchain – from bitcoin and etherium to meme coins like Dogecoin. Cryptocurrency is more often used to make money from increased volatility, some of the coins can double in value in a week, but visionaries see it as a tool for mass money transfers in their strategic plans. There are already many attempts to introduce, for example, bitcoin into retail trade – in some places you can even buy a bag of milk with it in a supermarket or a glass of beer in a bar, then there will be a legendary “bitcoin accepted” sticker at the entrance.
Classic financial giants like PayPal and Square are also expanding their cryptocurrency services. Coinbase, a startup that allows people to buy and sell cryptocurrencies, went public last April and is now valued at $47 billion. Among the world’s largest banks, the most progressive in terms of blockchain has long been JP Morgan, which back in 2017 developed its Quorum blockchain based on Ethereum.
Digital currency
Some states are launching pilot projects to create digital currencies that run on blockchain. So far, the most successful has been China, where tens of thousands of people have been charged a digital yuan with which to pay at retail outlets and make transfers. If such an experiment is successful, the digital yuan will appear in the country’s largest economic hubs, such as Shanghai.
Many jurisdictions, including the U.S. and the European Union, have similar digital currency projects. Singapore, despite having some pretty tough laws on the crypto industry, is also planning to launch its own digital currency.
Smart contracts
Thanks to smart contracts, blockchain can track the entire supply chain and verify the authenticity of, for example, coffee beans – where and by whom they were grown, how and when they arrived at the supermarket counter. This helps to completely eliminate the fact that the beans are counterfeit, know their freshness, and even verify that their production complies with your ethical and moral values.
NFT
One of the most popular crypto-assets of 2021 was NFT (non-interchangeable tokens) in the form of digital art, which could be purchased on marketplaces like OpenSea, Rarible, etc. Simply put, an NFT is a certificate that confirms your rights to digital art: photos, paintings, music, and even gifs. The trade volumes of such NFTs have grown up to billions of dollars, and according to various forecasts, the NFT sector will reach about 20% of the entire crypto-industry capitalization by 2025.
Gaming industry
Another blockchain industry that is conquering the world is GameFi, classic online games on the phone or computer that record everything that happens in the game in blockchain transactions and also establish a new play-to-earn (play to earn) economy. One prime example is the Vietnamese-Philippine game Axie Infinity, where you have to train fictional monsters and fight them to earn real money. These game mechanics gave ordinary people in Vietnam and the Philippines the opportunity to earn unprecedented amounts of money, up to $1,000 a month, and make a life for themselves.
Among the companies involved in the full implementation of crypto-economics and in-game NFT are such as Enjin and Attarius Network. These companies set a goal to do some kind of acceleration program for game developers, giving them everything they need – funding in grants and direct investments, technical and marketing consulting, development and implementation of cryptoeconomics in games, connection to leading graphics engines Unity and Unreal engine, on which the biggest game companies have already created dozens of masterpieces.