Versatility of the blockchain and its real world applications

I’m fairly sure that when the first blockchain came to the fore in January 2009 alongside Bitcoin, not many people thought it would become as huge as it is today. Built on the tenets of decentralization, transparency, immutability, and automation, the blockchain industry has created sub-sectors like Decentralized Finance (DeFi), Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), and the Metaverse. 

By definition, the blockchain is a distributed immutable database facilitating the process of recording transactions and tracking assets in a network. It was primarily associated with cryptocurrencies because the technology became popular with the advent of Bitcoin. But that has changed. The sectors mentioned above show the diversity of this technology’s use case. Today, it is used in different industries, especially changing (mostly positively) the world’s view on how finance works.

In this article, we will explore the different sectors that show how versatile blockchain technology is.

Blockchain and Gaming

Gaming has traditionally been a very rigid industry/activity. Personally, it used to be that I’d find a game I liked, play it for the fun and thrill it gives me, and be done with it. And if there was any financial commitment in the dynamic, I was spending my money either on buying the game or purchasing in-game assets.

Even though the gaming industry is huge, finance-wise — the global video game market size was estimated at $217 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 13.4% from 2023 to 2030 — I never expected to gain anything other than the excitement I got from playing video games. Pretty sure this was the norm with everyone as no video game was doing anything ‘extra’.

It was the norm until the blockchain stormed the scene and disrupted the structure. The gaming industry has changed a lot following the introduction of the Play-to-Earn (P2E) model. You can now earn in-game rewards for playing your favorite blockchain games. For a gamer, this is the sweetest deal ever. 

These rewards which are mostly in the form of tokens or NFTs can be exchanged for fiat currency. This has effectively made gaming a viable source of income. NFTs in blockchain gaming have also allowed true ownership for gamers, as your earned assets are uniquely yours. Like a ripple effect, true ownership in blockchain games is changing the user experience of these games. This is important because it helps with the mass adoption of these games. These changes and effects are evident in the market capitalization of the blockchain gaming sector — $13.2 billion at the time of writing. 

Perfect examples of some blockchain games leading the adoption charge are Sidus Heroes, Outlanders, and Utgard. Sidus Heroes is a P2E gaming platform that creates a holistic player-driven gaming economy through NFT technology. In this game, players can own in-game content which opens the doors for in-game trading. Outlanders is an open-world Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) that utilizes blockchain technology to onboard the masses while prioritizing user experience with intuitive interfaces and high-quality graphics. Utgard is a PvP play-to-earn game that allows you to assemble an army and battle in real-time 1v1 combat. Players can earn the native UTG tokens as in-game rewards, with complete ownership over their in-game assets.

These games feature the qualities mentioned earlier in this article; the use of NFTs and the P2E feature. You see, what was once a favorite pastime that involved the player paying the game’s publishers has now evolved into a sprawling ecosystem where players earn real-world value for their time and efforts. 

Blockchain Revolutionizing Retail

For a long time, the retail industry has faced a myriad of challenges. Some of the challenges range from fluctuating economies, and technological evolution, to changing consumer habits. For instance, inflation has reduced the purchasing power of some of the world’s major currencies. This poses significant challenges to the retail industry. Prices of goods and services shoot through the roof which results in reduced consumer spending. This becomes a tough situation for retailers, as they are stuck between increasing their prices and risking losing their customers. Or they could leave their prices as they were and suffer the brunt of the inflation. 

The e-commerce industry boom has also affected retailers. The convenience of shopping online, plus lower overhead means that online platforms can offer prices that brick-and-mortar stores can not. As a result, retailers are forced to start and maintain an online presence alongside their physical stores. This makes modern retailing even more complex. 

There’s also the ever-present problem of logistics. Any retail operation needs an efficient supply chain to be successful. Disruptions to this chain can lead to stock shortages which can spiral into other things (damaged reputation and loss of sales amongst others) if not nipped early. Effective supply chains would save a retail business a lot of this hassle. These problems are what Libera solves with blockchain technology. Libera is a platform that’s transforming the retail sector in emerging markets through the use of AI and blockchain technology. The platform aims to make invisible commerce visible by digitizing over 10 million stores and analyzing patterns in billions of unnoticed transactions. A working retail sector is the lifeblood of any economy, and Libera uses the blockchain to effect brilliant solutions in that sector. 

Scaling Ethereum Blockchain

Ethereum is one of the first and probably the most used blockchain for building disruptive products and solutions. The Ethereum network is a pioneer in smart contract development and as it has grown in popularity due to increasing demand, the network has suffered for it. Ethereum was originally designed to process around 12-15 transactions per second (TPS) on average. It currently processes transactions at a rate of 20-30 TPS. Compared with traditional finance networks, Visa says it can handle up to 24,000 TPS. This ‘overload’ of requests on the Ethereum network has resulted in:

• Network congestion: The volume of transactions becomes too much for the network to carry, which leads to regular network outages. 
• High transaction fees: Because of the network congestion, users are forced to pay a premium for their transactions to be prioritized. The blockchain quickly becomes too expensive for many users. 
• Slow transaction speeds: Because of the overload, it takes the network a lot of time to confirm transactions. This affects user experience negatively, limiting the network’s utility for real-world usage. 

These challenges have prevented Ethereum from becoming the main blockchain of choice for most builders today. Instead, it has seen the development of different scaling solutions to address these problems. AppLayer is one such solution. It is a C++ based Ethereum scaling solution where developers can deploy Solidity smart contracts and C++ programmed stateful pre-compiles as smart contracts. In AppLayer, Solidity smart contracts are 10 times faster than those in Golang-based competing networks, and stateful pre-compiles are 65 times faster.

Conclusion

The projects mentioned as examples are a microcosm of the blockchain revolution in the real world. They demonstrate the blockchain’s ability to affect and transform whole industries while introducing new economic concepts and models. More industries will feel the disruptive wave of the blockchain. Collaboration and synergy between different sectors leveraging the power of blockchain technology will also become a common feature. 

In 2023, the global blockchain technology market size was valued at $17.57 billion and is estimated to grow from $27.84 billion in 2024 to $825.93 billion by 2032, exhibiting a growth rate of 52.8% during the forecast period. So it’s almost a given that the industry will continue to grow but challenges persist. Issues like scalability, unclear regulatory frameworks, and poor user education are holes that need plugging. Fixing these issues promises will ensure the long-term success of the blockchain.