1. What is Blockchain Technology? and
How Does Blockchain Work?
Blockchain is one of the most discussed buzzwords among tech entrepreneurs of
today. Although the concept of blockchain was first introduced in 1991 by Stuart
Haber and W. Scott Stornetta, the tech community started to realize its incredible
potential after it gave birth to the first ​cryptocurrency and ​digital payment system​,
called​ ​Bitcoin​, in 2009.
What led to Bitcoin’s success the most was a digital decentralized system that
made peer-to-peer transactions possible without requiring an intermediary, such as
a bank, for verification. Each Bitcoin transaction is verified by network nodes
(members on the network) to prevent double-spend and added to a chain of blocks,

2. called a public distributed ledger. The so-called Blockchain is nothing but this
immutable growing chain of encrypted blocks.
For the better readability and navigation, here's a summary of what industries or
applications we'll cover in this article. You can choose and jump to a topic of your
interest or simply keep scrolling down the whole article as you read:
● How Does Blockchain Work?
● Two types of Blockchain: Public Blockchain and Private Blockchain
● Blockchain Applications Apart from Cryptocurrency
● Energy
● Distributed Cloud Storage
● Smart Property
● Blockchain Internet of Things (IoT) Use Cases:
● Healthcare
● Blockchain could resolve Medical Woes
● Machine Learning
● The Proof of Work Concept
● Digital Identity
● Travel
● Digital Notary or Proof of Existence

3. How Does Blockchain Work?
Image source: Red Piranha
Once a block is generated after grouping transactions in it, miners compete against
each other to ​find a hash that is accurate for that particular set of transactions. Once
the correct hash is found, the miner distributes it, along with the hash of the previous
block, throughout the network. After consensus of other members, the block is
added to the most recent block of the block chain.
Each block in the blockchain is linked to the previous block and can’t be deleted or
edited once added. Even a slight change in the block that was already verified and
added will change the hash of the block, which the network will identify as duplicate
and prevent the attempt to double spend. The blockchain has a complete record of

4. transactions right from the genesis block to the most recent one, which makes it
transparent and highly secured.
Two types of Blockchain: Public Blockchain and Private
Blockchain
Both public blockchain and private blockchain have similar functionality, except the
fact that the identity of participants remains anonymous on a public blockchain.
Bitcoin and ​Ethereum are the examples of public blockchain where users can
perform transactions without revealing their real identity.
Private blockchain, on the other hand, allows access only after identifying and
knowing the identity of users. Private blockchain are of more use to banks and
payment services as it enables them to retain some degree of control and revenue
potential. For example,​ ​NASDAQ uses private blockchain​.
Blockchain technology was initially predominant in financial sector, but imaginative
entrepreneurs are now developing more blockchain applications besides the
currency. This blog attempts to explore areas other than cryptocurrency where we
are likely to see possible uses of blockchain technology in coming years.

5. Blockchain Applications Apart from Cryptocurrency
Energy
Blockchain is a very promising technology for the energy sector, as it removes a
centralized authority for delivering energy transactions across a distributed network.
Using a blockchain platform like Ethereum or ​Ethereum Gold​, a “smart contract” can
be easily created between energy buyers and sellers to autonomously and securely
regulate both supply and payment. If the customer fails to make a payment for
energy consumed, the smart contract will automatically stop the power supply until
the payment has been made.
Smart contracts are also capable of balancing supply and demand to effectively
manage microgrids, virtual power plants, storage, etc. For example, the ​Brooklyn

6. MicroGrid project by ​LO3 Inc. provides a blockchain-based decentralized system to
energy providers to sell locally-produced electricity to their neighbours who don’t
have solar photovoltaic (PV) panels. The project creates a local,
neighborhood-powered grid that can be operated parallely to the main grid.
So, even if the main grid goes down, the microgrid will keep providing electricity to
homes. It’s like turning homes into connected power stations. Besides, real-time
metering of energy generation and consumption, and sending data across the
network via ​Internet of Things (IoT) lead to collective and effective energy
management.
Blockchain projects are also happening in ​European Oil and gas sector for faster
transactions with reduced costs. ​Energimine is another blockchain initiative that
aims at reducing global energy consumption by allowing individuals to buy and sell
#Energy through its peer-to-peer marketplace using green energy tokens.
Distributed Cloud Storage
Another blockchain application that will help businesses is Distributed Cloud
Storage. Cloud services, such as Dropbox, Amazon, and Google drive, are currently
being offered as a centralized solution, which means that you have to trust a single
party to keep your data safely. However, blockchain technology gives rise to
distributed cloud storage, which makes it possible to keep your data with multiple
parties, not just one. It also allows to rent out excess hard drive space, which will

7. increase the currently available size of cloud storage by many folds and reduce the
cost to store data.
Storj is a company that provides blockchain-based, end-to-end encrypted,
distributed storage. It first encrypts your data, and then sends out to a network, as a
measure to prevent data breach issues. Only you have the access to your data.
Blockchain technology also supports the concept of ​decentralized applications
(Dapps)​, which can communicate with multiple servers or devices on the same
network from any geographical location. Dapps can run concurrently on both the
client side and within a blockchain based distributed network. The client side of
Dapps is connected to the front-end and user credentials, whereas the blockchain
network takes care of the processing and storage requirements.
Smart Property

8. Image source: Lets Talk Payments
Blockchain technology also facilitates the creation of “​Smart Property​”, which tells
who is the actual owner of a property, like car, phone, etc., without requiring a
verification from any central authority. So, if an authority questions the ownership of
your physical or non-physical property, you can simply show them numbers of
blockchain confirmations that you are the rightful owner.
Blockchain is currently more feasible for electronic property, like computers, as they
can be designed to respond only to their blockchain-designated owners.
Autonomous cars can also be designed to respond only to their rightful owners, not
strangers or thieves. Only the holder of the correct cryptographic token can activate
the car’s engine.
Blockchain technology and ​IoT will have to go hand-in-hand to make the concept of
smart property a reality. If a report by Cisco is to believed, nearly ​50 billion devices
will come online by 2020​, which if turns out to be true will make the role of
blockchain technology very crucial in recording transactions and increasing
coordination between devices.

9.
Blockchain Internet of Things (IoT) Use Cases:
● Connected Vehicles
● Smart Appliances
● Supply Chain Sensors

10. Healthcare
Blockchain technology holds great promises to revolutionize healthcare sector.
Health industry has been long facing health data management challenges, like
patient consents, data siloes, data ownership, information governance and conflicts
arising from changes made by multiple sources. Distributed ledger technology can
address those concerns by making patients’ data fully secured and providing them
full control over their sensitive information, such as mental health data.
Blockchain could resolve Medical Woes
A decentralized system makes it possible to exchange a patient’s medical history,
like blood group or a disease that the patient was earlier diagnosed with, with every

11. health organization in a secured manner. So, if a patient was rushed to a hospital
they didn’t have a previous relationship, a lot of time will be saved in understanding
what disease the patient is suffering with and what type of care they need, which in
most cases proves to be life-saving. Patients can also restrict their medical
information to only a few members of the blockchain.
Blockchain technology also provides a fix for removing discrepancies and errors
from active medication lists, a problem that is rife worldwide. If a patient has been
prescribed a new medicine that they have discontinued as advised by another
member of the care team, the blockchain provides the power to the patient to not
let the edit to be added to the chain.
Also, if a patient has been prescribed a medicine that it identical to the medicine
recommended by another doctor, the blockchain will recognize it as duplicate and
prevent the patient from taking the same medicine. If a patient wants to discontinue
a medication, a notification to a primary care will spark a discussion over the
potential health issues the patient can face due to removing the medication from
the health record, which could keep the patient from discontinuing the medication.
Since blockchain makes it possible to keep individuals and their records together,
issues related to misidentification of patients can also be dealt deftly. Blockchain
has numerous positive implications for health sector to ensure cooperative and
long-term management of patients across multiple care settings. ​IBM Watson
Health and the FDA have already collaborated to understand how blockchain
technology could help the health IT infrastructure to grow and become more
advanced.

12. Machine Learning
Image source: Google Sites
Machine learning (ML) refers to algorithms that make computers capable of learning
from data to make predictions or take actions. Businesses are now increasingly
feeling the need of automating their systems using machine learning AI. However,
the major roadblock to achieve so is the requirement of tremendous computational
power. This is where blockchain fits nicely by providing distributed computational
power to solve machine learning computations.
TensorBit is a good example of how blockchain technology could be used to solve
machine learning problems. Unlike Bitcoin where miners solve hash functions,
TensorBit encourages miners to solve machine learning problems and artificial
intelligence computations that many companies are looking for.

13. Besides, it’s API notifies companies about the amount of computational power that
is being used to solve their machine learning problems. So, you only pay for the
computational power that is required to solve your machine learning problem…..
>>>> Read full blog visit website - ​Blockchain Applications and Potential Across
Industries (apart from cryptocurrencies)