In part one of this discussion, we discussed where blockchain is now. Blockchain technology has indeed created new use cases for industries and at times disrupted them, from real estate and financial services. Meanwhile, it’s been improving our personal as well as professional lives. 

For example, it has been reported that Internet of Things (IoT) platforms have already integrated blockchain technology to benefit home security by encrypting keys for smart home systems. Similarly, some IoT platforms are enabling dApps to work with Amazon Alexa and Facebook messenger. 

And to this, Tech Jury adds that 20% of IoT technologies already included blockchain-enabled services in 2020, with IoT itself expected to be worth nearly $1.5 billion by 2027.

The Rise of DeFi

Many enterprises are signing on to public blockchain. Indeed, as Forrester Research survey reports, 75% of enterprises in a wide variety of industries and countries declared they’ll likely use public blockchain technology, specifically, in the future. Indeed, the survey reveals that 35% are actively planning to implement public blockchains within the next two years.

There’s a good reason — actually many reasons — for such a move away from private blockchain adoption, at least with using the private kind exclusively.

Public Blockchain — Sustainable in More Ways Than One

It’s not just financial ecosystems that stand to benefit from public blockchain but also natural ones. This is especially true with increasingly new ways to validate transaction blocks.

Block producers, the essential, abundant agents creating blocks of transaction data in public blockchains’ completely transparent, consensus-driven systems, have traditionally been proof of work. Proof of work basically means a free-for-all of random guesses to claim rewards from validating, which requires an arbitrary amount of computing power. Ultimately, this data mining has used much more energy than the new paradigm, proof of stake.

With proof of stake, primarily a feature of public blockchain technology adoption, block producers provide value themselves, through staking their own money. Their rewards are directly based on this defined stake instead of making a virtually limitless number of algorithmic calculations to get there first.

Proof of stake will attain especially high prominence with the implementation of Ethereum 2.0, which is to bring proof of stake, as well as greater transaction speeds, into the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency no later than 2022.

Tokenization Is Taking Off 

Cryptocurrency usage keeps growing strong in 2021, but crypto coins are just part of the burgeoning asset portfolio available through blockchain technology adoption. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which are unique representations in virtually unhackable blockchain code of pretty much any agreed-upon thing in the virtual or physical world, are still very popular and gaining popularity. 

NFTs are currently being used to represent things both virtual, such as computerized real estate on platforms such as Decentraland and Republic Realm, and concrete, such as truly authenticated soccer jerseys.

State-of-the-art DeFi platforms such as AIKON, EOS and Algorand have recently started taking the tokenization technology behind NFTs and broadening its impact to an increasing number of enterprise use cases. These groundbreaking platforms have created their own utility tokens and are using them to facilitate multiple functionalities with the ultimate level of data security that only blockchain technology adoption allows. 

Algorand’s token, $ALGO, for example, enables enterprises to create new financial tools, protocols, and services. EOS block producers are using the ORE token to provide fast, scalable, and intermediary-free transactions for some genuinely worthwhile uses. These uses include bringing more renewable energy to Africa and allowing beneficiaries of traditionally physical-card dependent eBT resources to access their benefits online.

What’s more, all three platforms are using parallel transactions and proof of stake similar to those of Ethereum 2.0 to make blockchain more sustainable and on-chain transactions faster.

Blockchain as a Service

Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) platforms, such as AIKON, are not only following best practices but creating them as well. AIKON is a pioneer in two other areas of blockchain technology currently gaining attention and development focus — identity management and cross-chain compatibility among distinct blockchains. 

Identity management tools stand to add even more value to blockchain technology and make user identification more secure by focusing more on just the information required. AIKON’s ORE ID is a single sign-on authentication platform that works cross-chain with developer-friendly, open-source code and an easy-to-implement and -use signup and login interface. 

Moreover, the ORE token is used with ORE ID accounts to facilitate virtually any kind of transaction across any blockchain, with any token or even cryptocurrency. Connected platforms already include Algorand, Ethereum, EOS, and Telos and are continually increasing in number.

In conclusion, the usefulness and value of blockchain technology have been increasing since the technology’s relatively recent introduction and will continue to do so. At its current rate, the ultimate future of blockchain technology adoption seems closer than ever.

If you’re interested in partnering with AIKON to streamline your business with blockchain, contact us.