These slides were presented at the International Scientific Conference of Business Economics Management and Marketing (ISCOBEMM 2019), September 5th - 6th 2019 in Prušánky – Nechory, Czech Republic.

1. Blockchain Applications in Business
Ahad Zare Ravasan, PhD
Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
Ahad.Zareravasan@econ.muni.cz

2. My Bitcoin Background
• Heard about Bitcoin from a friend in college in early
2011 (BTC/USD ~10 each)
• Began Bitcoin mining in 2011, made several bitcoins
• Biggest regret: selling over 100 BTC < $1000 (today
value > $ 1m) 
• Bought some bitcoins in 2017 
• Traded on Bitfinex and Binance
• Second Biggest regret: Engaging with trading which
resulted in losing 80% of my initial coins due to recent
market collapse 
BITCOIN PIZZA DAY
On MAY 22nd 2010,
10.000 BTC
PAID FOR A PIZZA
Laszlo Hanyecz

3. Outline
• Part 1: Blockchain features
• Part 2: Blockchain Applications, starting with cryptocurrencies
• Part 3: Criticism and Challenges
• Part 4: Adoption framework
3

4. 4
WHAT IS BLOCKCHAIN?
WHAT IT IS NOT?

5. Blockchain opportunities by industrial sector
Zare.Ahad@gmail.com 5

6. 6

7. A brief history on money
• Physical cash
– Non-traceable
– Secure
– Low inflation
• Can’t be used online directly
Electronic credit or debit transactions
Banks see all transactions
Merchants can track/profile customers
7

8. Chaum’s anonymous e-cash
Features:
- anonymous
- secure (no double-spending)
- Low inflation
- Privacy-preserving
Various practical issues:
- only transfer (no creation/storage)
- Need for trusted central party
- Computationally expensive
…and bankrupted in 1999
8

9. Bitcoin (BTC)
• is a global crypto-currency (symbol BTC)
• Around since January of 2009
• Based on Blockchain
• Not issued by any entity/ No trusted third-
party required
• Peer-to-peer / decentralized / Uncontrollable
• Cryptographically sealed (cryptoCurrency)
9
• People who verify transactions are
called miners
• The maximum number of Bitcoins
will be about 21 million
• Fast transactions
• Low-cost transactions
• Irreversible trades

10. 10
SWIFT
11,000+ financial institutions use the service in
more than 200 countries
34 million FIN messages per day
Settlement time= 30 min- 48 hours
XRP (Ripple)
150 financial institutions use the service
1 million transaction per day (network cap is
130 m)
Settlement time= 5 seconds

11. Implications for Cryptocurrency community
11
R3CEV consortium

12. Potential areas to adopt in the financial sector
Zare.Ahad@gmail.com 12

13. E-government-public sector
13
• promote transparency of the national and local budgets
• create crowdfunding platforms enabling investors to trace
expenditures on their projects
• e-voting
• education

14. Healthcare
14
• manage Electronic Medical
Records (EMRs)
• pharmaceutical supply
chain

15. Energy
15
• POWER LEDGER Project

16. Insurance
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• Fraud detection
• Integration with IoT

17. Supply Chain
17
• EVERLEDGER
• MAERSK

18. Zare.Ahad@gmail.com 18

19. Some modules
19

20. Blockchain: technical challenges and limitations
• Throughput: The
potential throughput of
issues in the Bitcoin
network is currently
maximized to 7tps.
• Latency: currently
roughly 10 minutes to
complete one transaction
(for BTC).
20

21. Blockchain: technical challenges and limitations
• Wasted resources: Mining Bitcoin
wastes huge amounts of energy
($15million/day).
21

22. Blockchain Fit Assessment Framework
22
Source: Deloitte

23. Thank you for your
attention!
Questions, comments or remarks?
Email: Ahad.Zareravasan@econ.muni.cz