Feb 13, 2019
This week on Blockchain 2025 we have the second part of our “Industry Revisit” series where Matt and Blake dissect some of the most intriguing blockchain projects from 2018.
As a quick refresher, the goal here is to check back in on these projects to see how things have been progressing and if we believe they still have a compelling use case.
It’s important to do this type of research now so that you’re well informed for the day the market turns back around.
Here are the industries they looked at:
Real Estate:
Putting real estate on the blockchain would enable buildings to become “tokenized”, essentially allowing investors to buy and sell shares in things like apartment buildings or even their own houses.
You could even put the deeds to these houses on the blockchain so that you could easily verify who that property belongs to.
This doesn’t sound revolutionary for those in the US or Europe, but in countries like Haiti and Peru, it can be difficult to determine ownership especially after natural disasters like earthquakes which could destroy public records.
And if you’ve ever purchased a property, you know about all the middlemen that take a a percentage of the final transaction. Blockchain could eliminate those fees and streamline the process.
While this sounds practical, it is still a long way off from being reality due to the existing power structures currently in place.
Religion:
Projects like 0xOmega are looking to put religion on the blockchain. While it may not be the most killer use case, it’s not that far fetched to consider putting a sacred text on the blockchain so that the original mandates are recorded in history for no-one to tamper with.
It would be the equivalent of putting the Ten Commandments or the Constitution on the blockchain, so that there would be no ambiguity as to what the original founders intended the documents to proclaim.
Followers could even use the token to vote on proposed changes or to give donations to those in need. Again, not the best use case but this interesting to think about.
File Storage:
When Facebook first started, a majority of their operating costs went to towards purchasing servers to store data. These days, start-ups can simply sign-up for Amazon Web Services and upload all of their data to the cloud for a fraction of the cost.
Decentralized file storage projects are looking to go a step further by allowing people to rent out their excess computer space, just like you would rent out a spare room on Airbnb.
Aside from the possibility of even cheaper storage, this would also prevent the risk of a handful of companies being responsible for protecting everyone’s data.
A decentralized network could spread out the risk amongst a massive fleet of computers, so no single entity bore the responsibility of securing the network.
Traditional cloud services may not go away, but there is definitely a place for decentralized file storage. Big name investors like Naval Ravikant have backed projects like IPFS, and Blake is confident that this space will blow up at some point in the future.
Decentralized Exchanges:
Coinbase and Binance are two of the biggest money making machines in the blockchain industry. Despite Bitcoin’s weak price action, they have been raking in profits.
However, centralized exchanges are susceptible to cyber attacks. We’ve seen this time and time again with exchanges like Mt. Gox and Cryptopia.
Decentralized Exchange’s look to solve this problem by relaying buy and sell orders directly between two people. Thus eliminating the risk associated with trusting a third party.
Before these take off, they must address pressing issues like regulatory requirements and the ability to find liquidity for the assets.
Coinbase and Binance have already taken precautionary steps to avoid being dethroned by either acquiring or building decentralized versions of themselves.
Once the usability and design improves, expect these products to be just as sticky as their predecessors which have served as the gateway to cryptocurrency for millions around the globe.
That’s it for this week’s episode. As we mentioned it’s important to check back in and see how things are shaking out in this fast evolving space. We hope that you enjoyed and as always feel free to drop us a note if you have any comments or questions.