It is thought that in the future, blockchain applications will be used for traditional business processes. A user will select a blockchain as an alternative to a traditional business process for the following properties in a blockchain:
- transparency
- robustness
- auditability
- security.
A business will select a blockchain as an alternative to a traditional business process because of the following possibilities:
- to be decentralized
- to decrease costs
- to increase efficiency.
At this time, there are three generations of blockchain. They are:
- blockchain 1.0 for digital cryptocurrency transactions
- blockchain 2.0 for smart contracts
- blockchain 3.0 for applications in:
- government
- health
- finance
- Internet of things (IoT), etc.
The different types user access to blockchains
There are three different types of user access to blockchains:
- public
- private
- federated
A public blockchain network lets anyone join. A user on a public blockchain can do a transaction as well as be a node miner. i.e. verify transactions. A private blockchain network only lets specified users do a transaction or be miner. A federated blockchain combines the features of a public and private blockchain. In a federated blockchain specified users are selected to be of leader nodes. The leader nodes verify transactions. The leader nodes also select the blockchain users that can do transactions. Below is a list of typical applications done in public, private, and federated blockchain as well as examples of public, private, and federated blockchain blockchains.
Blockchain applications
The University of Piraeus did a literature review of blockchain applications from January 2014 to April 2018. The study included research papers published in scientific journals, books, conference proceedings, serial magazine articles, and Google. The following is the list of general categories for blockchain applications and the amount of that a specified application was written about.
The miscellaneous category has applications that are not easily included into the other category. Examples are:
- crowd-funding
- charity and philanthropy
- manage event tickets
Conclusions
The number of blockchain applications available continues to increase at a fast rate. At this time, many blockchain applications have been made and are used in different industries. This blog identified the different generations of blockchains, the availability of blockchains to users, and the where most of the current development for blockchains is in progress.
