By Akash Kasibhatla


Now, there are many practical applications of Blockchain, and it comes in more forms than just a currency. Blockchain can be used to secure healthcare records, secure data, prevent fraud, provide a secure social network, and of course provide education to the world.

 In fact, there is a project that launched very recently that securely stores medical records through Blockchain technology. Hospitals, health insurers, and various other healthcare professionals can request permission to access the patients’ records and record transactions on the distributed ledger. The startup behind this, Medicalchain, has the fundamental goal to progress healthcare using Blockchain technology, and not to simply create a currency.

The Issue of Inequality

It’s true that a global, decentralised currency could do wonders in the economic sphere. The potential economic effects of Blockchain are very interesting, but first, it is worth considering what the centralised system is doing. The top eight richest people hold as much wealth as the bottom 50% of people in the world. This is because of centralisation.

Corporations are politically centralised, architecturally centralised, and logically centralised. This results in a pyramid where the wealthy and powerful feed off of the masses.But, Blockchain can change that. It can raise the standard of living for people across the globe. Instead of redistributing wealth, could one instead change the way it is created in the first place?

Some of the possible ways are the Sharing Economy, Data-driven Blockchain applications, and the Remittance crisis.The Sharing Economy is a term used to transfer assets peer-to-peer through an online marketplace. Instead of going through centralised companies like Lyft or Uber, one can place an order for a ride on a distributed application on a Blockchain network and someone will pick it up without any intermediaries necessary.

The contract will be controlled through smart contracts, so the need for trust has been taken care of. The app automatically contacts the two parties involved and handles all the payments. This completely takes out the centralised party such as Uber that is raking in all the capital from the hard-working people.

A Commodity Named Data

Data-driven Blockchain applications are a big thing now too. Data is being sold, stored, and stolen all over the world. Data about people, their jobs, where they’ve been, what they’ve done; pretty much everything. Their data is stored by centralised companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Intel.

On top of that, there are centralised governments using cryptography to spy and collect data on everyone in the world, whether good or bad. In fact, one would know less about themselves than what is stored in those databases right now. People have a limited memory while the database has the capacity to remember for a lifetime. 

So, data has value these days and one can even monetise it. The problem here is that their data, which is stored on central databases, inherently belongs to these people but is not owned by them. There are new Blockchain companies coming out now that are attempting to create a digital version of everyone in a bubble. Just for each person.


This bubble collects their data but only gives out the bare necessities when it is required to do something, such as showing their ID when buying liquor. By doing this, one is doing two things: they’re able to monetize their own data and they’re also able to keep their privacy. This benefits both the developed and the developing societies in the sense that data is a universal asset.

Blockchain in the Developing World

Finally, an issue that the world has been facing for over a decade: The Global Remittance Problem. This is the crisis of the absurd fee on transferring money from one person to another through a third party. For example, a family member leaves their home for a more economically prosperous lifestyle in a different country to put their kids through a good school but still sends money home every month to sustain the rest of the family.

This person would have to go through third parties such as Moneygram and other means to send money to their family. And these third parties take a big chunk (up to 40%) out of this person’s hard-earned earnings that they were going to send. With Blockchain, one can completely bypass third parties and go straight to the receiving person.

So, Person A in the UK can send Person B in Zimbabwe money through a cryptocurrency platform for a total fee of 2% for the transaction. The transaction happens in seconds and the money is at one’s door within minutes. All completely secure. But, this isn’t just about Blockchain being a breakthrough in security and technology as one can see – whole countries are dependent on it for sustenance.


For example, The Zimbabwean Dollar (ZWL) was rendered obsolete in 2009 due to hyperinflation, and they have no national currency. They were paying a premium of 15% in late 2017 to trade their wealth in for Bitcoin. Blockchain technology is completely changing the game. People turn to cryptocurrency for support in keeping their wealth intact.

This is a necessity for those people, not a comfort.One needs to take this fact into serious consideration when thinking about banning cryptocurrencies or Bitcoin as a whole because there are millions of people out there that already depend on it.

 But, even if Bitcoin disappears, which is unlikely, Blockchain technology will be going nowhere and will be around for decades to come. As they say, the technology genie is out of the bottle once again.