The total market cap of all cryptocurrencies is growing constantly. It has reached $2.4 trillion as of October 27, 2021, with over 700 million transactions performed over the blockchain. According to Gartner, blockchain is projected to support an annual global movement and tracking of goods worth $2 trillion.
Let us dive into each trend that has made our lives simpler with the materialization of blockchain technology and its penetration into other businesses, according to News Spy.
NFTs
Blockchain metamorphosed into the realms of art and creativity through the NFT route. Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are a non-replicated copy of a unique digital asset- an art masterpiece, or tangible and intangible assets that could be traded or collected by a crypto enthusiast. This has involved many artists, sportspersons, film celebrities, and musicians, flooding the blockchains with unmatched token sales for astonishing sums of money. For instance, Popularly known as Beeple, Mike Winkelmann sold his “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” of artwork as an NFT token for a whooping sum of $69.3 million at Christie’s. First released in 2017 by CryptoKitties, an Ethereum based game, NFTs have had their share of popularity since.
BaaS (Blockchain-as-a-Service)
It is a convenient cloud service to design and consequently manage using smart contracts and decentralize its applications powered by blockchain technology. It has been successfully implemented by biggies like Microsoft, Alibaba, IBM, SalesForce, and Amazon, and is being constantly explored by many startups. The main attractive features of the service include advanced protection by chip encryption technology, high stability utilizing highly reliable data storage, platform architecture management, modular networks and infrastructure, easy configuration, verifiable records, and a reliable dashboard to view chain code.
Real Estate
With its penetration into the real estate sphere of industry, blockchain invalidated the appearance of any third party for the transactions. Further to this, it has facilitated the fractional ownership to a property. With this, the investor can buy, sell, or tokenize the property, holding the sole ownership over its share. The first deal came three years ago as part of a pilot program by Propy, a California-based property marketplace. Blockchain aids a property transaction by dealing in smart contracts where the users don’t have to worry about getting involved in unnecessary hassle.
COVID-19 vaccine tracking and distribution
As the world struggled its way through the pandemic, blockchain offered its services with safe and effective vaccine distribution amongst the public. Supply chain management, transparency, accountability, enhanced security, trust, and distribution tracking were the attributes of the technology for the noble cause. The first initiative was launched in the UK, where two NHS hospitals utilized blockchain to track and monitor the storage and supply of thermal-sensitive COVID-19 vaccines. This was welcomed by advancing its application further to track the delivery of other vaccines, drugs, and medical equipment.
DeFi (Decentralized Finance)
It is a movement with the aim to revolutionize traditional financial products and services by relaying them over the blockchain network. Broadly speaking, DeFi products offer access to alternate savings, lending and borrowing services, rapid and cheap payments, secured staking, affordable insurance, currency exchange, and asset tokenization and management. DeFi has enabled several investors to enter the financial realms through barrier-free entry points, making the markets accessible to a wider range of people globally. This has invalidated the existence of third parties, making peer-to-peer interaction more popular.
STOs (Security Token Offerings)
It is an efficient and regulated way of investment and capitalization, with a record of all the processes over the blockchain. The cryptographic tokens are backed by assets like corporate stocks, bonds, tangibles like cars, and real estate. These are subject to jurisdictions and are taxable according to the regional laws. As of May 2021, the market capitalization of tokenized real estate is $32.9 million, attributed to fractional ownership of the property. This allows a property to be divided into multiple tokens, making typical illiquid assets even more lucrative. A few examples of successful real estate tokenization include- St. Regis Aspen Resort (in Colorado), Blue Karma Secrets Hotels and Resorts (in Bali), and Beachfront Hotel (in Phuket)
DEXs (Decentralized Exchanges)
They are blockchain-powered platforms to trade cryptocurrency without involving any third party. The DEX trading volume reached its peak during the month of May this year, exceeding $173 billion. Uniswap is the most prominent DEX, built on Ethereum blockchain, enabling swapping of ERC-20 tokens. It has 64.1% of the total market share.
Summary
The blockchain is evolving, growing by leaps and bounds with every passing year. These ideas, that were once conceived are being realized and blended into the real world quite effectively. Blockchain technology has been constantly improvised innovatively to secure personal information, customize access, tokenize the assets, and boost the over revenue and performance of the business.
