Blockchain: The Real Benefit of Cryptocurrencies

The merit of cryptocurrencies has become a topic of debate, even among non-traditional investors who observed the rise of Bitcoin, in search of the best way to try to profit.

However, even if cryptocurrencies do not survive, the blockchain technology behind the cryptocurrency algorithms could be the revelation that will revolutionize many industries in the future. There already are examples to share about the potential benfits of this new technology.

FX Empire – a global financial news portal – identified four industries that could experience a significant impact of blockchain technology as early as this year. Identifying the industries and companies that will use the innovative technology to drive efficiencies and disrupt their markets will be a great advantage for investors looking to cash in on the next technological paradigm shift.

Unlike investing in cryptocurrencies, investors might be more open to invest in companies using blockchain for their advantage, because those investments are similar to traditional value investing in companies with sound fundamentals and a positive growth outlook.

1. Payments and Money Transfers

Unlike traditional payment and money transfer processes, blockchain technology enables direct transfer of value and funds with no need for a centralized intermediary

2. Academia

FX Empire reports that blockchain can easily and accurately track and verify academic credentials. Learning Machine is already collaborating with the MIT Media Lab Learning Initiative to build a technology for storage, retrieval and verification of academic credentials using this new technology.

 3. Forecasting in predictive markets

The application of blockchain technology improves the other three examples here by increasing efficiency. However, investors should be most interested in the application of this technology to improve forecasting in predictive markets. The blockchain technology enables accurate tracking and verification of past forecasts that can be easily compared to actual outcomes. Therefore, identifying the “experts” with best forecasting performance would be easy.

 4. Real Estate

Blockchain could provide easily accessible and accurate real estate ownership and transaction records. In addition to improving recordkeeping, paperwork reduction and elimination of intermediaries would significantly reduce administrative costs for real estate transactions.

Blockchain appears to be the next disruptive technology. Investors that are not willing to jump on the cryptocurrency rollercoaster have alternative ways to take advantage of this invative technology for investment gains.