9.1 Blockchain Use Cases - Video Tutorials & Practice Problems

So we've talked about blockchain. We've talked about Bitcoin. We've talked about all these various applications. Talking about decentralized applications. We've talked about digital tokens. But we really need to focus on the concept of innovation. And innovation is what really drives new technologies to really be implemented. And these innovations have an impact on different business industries. I'm gonna focus now on some blockchain use cases. And tie it into the concept of business innovation. For starters, I wanna get into a quote that was actually stated at the World Economic Forum, 2018, from the session title, building blockchains for a better planet. And it states that blockchain has the potential to transform how humans transact. It is a decentralized electronic ledger system that creates a cryptographically secure and immutable record of any transaction of value, whether it be money, goods, property, work or votes. Key elements that I wanna point out in this is that we've talked about Bitcoin, and Bitcoin does a transfer of value, which is very similar to just sending money. But you can also use blockchain for many other things. We've talked about the fact that we actually use it in digital assets. So we talked about moving a digital asset through a supply chain. And we talked about also a crypto case. But in this case, you can see that there are many other applications. For example, votes. Electronic voting could be a good use of blockchain. And what we're gonna focus on now is multiple use cases of blockchain. And how blockchain is being applied in different industries. So let's begin with some of these blockchain uses. First thing I wanna point out to you is that Bitcoin is only one application of blockchain. And that's very important for you to know. Because Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency. But there are many different other cryptocurrencies, as well. As we stated, there's over 2,177, as we said, during a previous lesson. And that's just as of this moment. By the time this lesson maybe seen in the future, that number may increase. That is blockchain has been used in many, many ways. And cryptocurrency is just one of them. Now blockchain can also be used in many other areas. Some of the areas where it's being used are supply chain management, digital identity, electronic voting as we said from the World Economic Forum. Electronic medical records, fundraising, recording property rights, event ticketing and there are many others. These are just a few areas and examples of what could be done. Let's focus now on real business use cases in this lesson, by focusing on five real business use cases of blockchain. I'll be going through these and give you details of them as we go through. Let's begin first with Walmart. And how Walmart is using blockchain to track food safety on the food supply chain. Now, when it comes to Walmart, they began their tests in 2016. That means that Walmart has been using blockchain to track their food supply since 2016. To be specific, they began with pork products in China. And they have expanded from there. Now their angle is to track suppliers and products on blockchain. And keep a permanent record of the provenance and the path of these food products across the supply chain. Now, as I mentioned, they originally tracked pork products across China, but they have expanded it. And now they're focusing on all leafy greens vegetable. And planning above and beyond that. As a matter of fact, their focus is to improve supply chain transparency and the efficiency. When I mentioned the leafy green vegetables, this is a key factor. Because in 2018, there were many outbreaks of romaine lettuce, which is contaminated with E. coli. And it really was a big problem because the Center for Disease Controls had no way of tracking where the source of these different leafy green vegetables in this case, romaine lettuce, came from. But through the use of blockchain, you can actually find the source and provenance of these different leafy green vegetables. And because of this, Walmart has actually mandated that by fall 2019, all of their leafy green vegetable suppliers need to track the source and provenance of these different leafy green vegetables on blockchain. Now the goal of this food safety initiative using blockchain is to manage contamination cases, why? Because if you can actually know the provenance of these food items, you can actually see exactly where the sources. And just discard the contaminated supplies. Now, when there were all these outbreaks of E. coli in the romaine lettuce supply, millions of dollars of lettuce were thrown away. Because since you didn't know where the contaminated E. coli riddled, lettuce was coming from, you basically had to get rid of all the product. And that meant millions of dollars of lettuce just disposed. When in fact if you knew where the contaminated lettuce came from, you would just get rid of that one. This is a key problem when you're trying to manage contamination cases. Now, in their specific focuses, they were able to reduce the time it took to track the produce, from an average of six days to under three seconds. What that means that if you need to know the source of an item that's being tracked on blockchain, whereas it used to take them close to a week to find that, now they can do it in a span of under three seconds. The next use case focuses on the wine industry. And I'm gonna be talking about a application from DNV GL. Which is a leader in the certification space. And in this case, we we will talking about certifying wine. For this specific purpose, I wanna talk about their offering called My Story. Which tracks the provenance of wine and other products. Specifically, I'm gonna focus on wine. Because it's the best known application of My Story. But they're applying My Story across many other products. Let's focus first on wine. Specifically when you use My Atory, with DNV GL's offering, it's blockchain tracking of wine and products across the supply chain. The key thing behind it is that there is a QR code, which is applied to every single bottle. And what that does is that you have a unique QR code that gives you whole visibility from the grape, all the way to that bottle. Now, this is very different from example, to having a barcode on a bottle that gives you the brand name. Or it might give you the company. You might tie some things to us. This is actually a unique asset that's being tracked with a QR code on a bottle. That is, when you scan that QR code on that bottle, you're getting the story of the wine that's in that specific bottle. All the way from the grape, all the way through. Now, you got the full history from the wine, from the grape to the bottle. Including the quality, the authenticity, the origin, the ingredients. But not only that, you also track water and energy consumption in other ways. There's many, many bits of information you can tie into the story of that product. You can even track the history of the farm. You can put all the information that's included with that specific wine that you're consuming. Currently, there are three Italian wine makers, which are featuring these labels for these QR codes for their unique wines. So whenever you buy their wine, you're not only buying a wine, you're buying the story of the wine. And specifically for the bottle that you're buying. For this use case, we're gonna be talking about shipping. And how blockchain can be used. Specifically, we're gonna focus on Anheuser-Busch, Accenture, APL and Kuenhe and Nagel, working with a European Customs Agency. And their goal was to eliminate printed shipping documents, focusing specifically on transporting beer. So when we focus on this, as I mentioned, all these companies work with a European Custom Agency. With the goal of exchanging documents and paper or electronic form. And eliminating this. Because the process of using paper forms when it comes to shipping is very, very prone to making mistakes. It's also very wasteful when you wind up having multiple steps along a shipping line. Where you actually have a supply chain that goes across different stages. And there's paper forms filled out at every stage. So not only do you have the problem of having redundancy of filling out forms on paper each time, but you also have discrepancies. Somebody may fill in the form incorrectly, may lose a paper. And this is actually a very wasteful and inefficient. Now by using blockchain, they were able to reduce data entry by up to 80%. And this is a massive improvement in efficiency. Additionally, this entire process lowered the risk of penalties from customs compliance issues. Because as I mentioned, if you have to fill out paper forms and there's many steps along the way where you may, for instance, lose a paper or may fill out the paper incorrectly, this has many times consequences, including penalties. And by using blockchain-based system, they lowered the risk of these penalties. The next use case will be diamonds. And we're gonna be focusing on a solution from a company called Everledger. And the goal is to attract diamonds from mine to consumer. Specifically, let's focus on Everledger. This initiative was founded in 2015. And what Everledger does is track the provenance of high value assets on a global digital ledger. As we talked about, you can track assets on a blockchain. Well, in this case, you're tracking diamonds. And just like you can track a Bitcoin making it's way across the Bitcoin network, well, you can track a diamond as it makes it's way through the supply chain. Everledger actually has encrypted the provenance of over 2 million diamonds. What that means is that you have the entire history of over 2 million diamonds that are being tracked by Everledger. They work across the diamond supply chain, including manufacturers and retailers. And you keep a historical ledger of the movement of diamonds with real time data. And the result, what you're getting is each diamond includes the origin, the cutting, polishing and the master artisans' work and certification. So when you buy a diamond, you know exactly all of this information for that specific diamond that you're buying. The next use case involves art. The art industry is ripe with many, many cases of counterfeit art. And there's a huge problem with stolen artworks making it's way into the art circle. Now there's a company called Artory, which actually tracks the provenance and authenticity for art and collectibles. In the case of Artory, they were founded in 2016. And their focus is combating art fraud. It's estimated that 50% of the artwork that's in circulation is actually fraudulent. And this is a huge problem when you're talking about billions of dollars. What Artory actually does is they track the provenance of art and collectibles by using blockchain. In fact, they collaborated with Christie's auction house to record a 318 million art sale. And what that means is that every single piece that was sold at auction came along with the entire history of that piece. So you know exactly the provenance and it's authentic art piece. Now, all the buyers that actually participated in this auction, received secure and immutable record of the history of the artwork they purchased. And when the artwork is sold, a new digital certificate is generated and issued to the new owner.