why do this the food industry has seen countless outbreaks of e coli salmonella and listeria in some cases hazardous materials were accidentally introduced to foods in the past it has taken weeks to find the source of these outbreaks or the cause of sickness from what people are eating 
using blockchain allows brands to track a food product s route from its origin through each stop it makes to delivery not only that but these companies can also now see everything else it may have come in contact with allowing the identification of the problem to occur far sooner potentially saving lives this is one example of blockchain in practice but many other forms of blockchain implementation exist perhaps no industry stands to benefit from integrating blockchain into its business operations more than personal banking financial institutions only operate during business hours usually five days a week that means if you try to deposit a check on friday at 6 p m you will likely have to wait until monday morning to see that money hit your account even if you make your deposit during business hours the transaction can still take one to three days to verify due to the sheer volume of transactions that banks need to settle blockchain on the other hand never sleeps by integrating blockchain into banks consumers might see their transactions processed in minutes or seconds the time it takes to add a block to the blockchain regardless of holidays or the time of day or week with blockchain banks also have the opportunity to exchange funds between institutions more quickly and securely given the size of the sums involved even the few days the money is in transit can carry significant costs and risks for banks the settlement and clearing process for stock traders can take up to three days or longer if trading internationally meaning that the money and shares are frozen for that period blockchain could drastically reduce that time blockchain forms the bedrock for cryptocurrencies like bitcoin this design also allows for easier cross border transactions because it bypasses currency restrictions instabilities or lack of infrastructure by using a distributed network that can reach anyone with an internet connection healthcare providers can leverage blockchain to store their patients medical records securely when a medical record is generated and signed it can be written into the blockchain which provides patients with proof and confidence that the record cannot be changed these personal health records could be encoded and stored on the blockchain with a private key so that they are only accessible to specific individuals thereby ensuring privacy if you have ever spent time in your local recorder s office you will know that recording property rights is both burdensome and inefficient today a physical deed must be delivered to a government employee at the local recording office where it is manually entered into the county s central database and public index in the case of a property dispute claims to the property must be reconciled with the public index this process is not just costly and time consuming it is also prone to human error where each inaccuracy makes tracking property ownership less efficient blockchain has the potential to eliminate the need for scanning documents and tracking down physical files in a local recording office if property ownership is stored and verified on the blockchain owners can trust that their deed is accurate and permanently recorded proving property ownership can be nearly impossible in war torn countries or areas with little to no government or financial infrastructure and no recorder s office if a group of people living in such an area can leverage blockchain then transparent and clear timelines of property ownership could be established a smart contract is computer code that can be built into the blockchain to facilitate transactions it operates under a set of conditions to which users agree when those conditions are met the smart contract conducts the transaction for the users as in the ibm food trust example suppliers can use blockchain to record the origins of materials that they have purchased this would allow companies to verify the authenticity of not only their products but also common labels such as organic local and fair trade as reported by forbes the food industry is increasingly adopting the use of blockchain to track the path and safety of food throughout the farm to user journey 6as mentioned above blockchain could facilitate a modern voting system voting with blockchain carries the potential to eliminate election fraud and boost voter turnout as was tested in the november 2018 midterm elections in west virginia 7using blockchain in this way would make votes nearly impossible to tamper with the blockchain protocol would also maintain transparency in the electoral process reducing the personnel needed to conduct an election and providing officials with nearly instant results this would eliminate the need for recounts or any real concern that fraud might threaten the election pros and cons of blockchainfor all of its complexity blockchain s potential as a decentralized form of record keeping is almost without limit from greater user privacy and heightened security to lower processing fees and fewer errors blockchain technology may very well see applications beyond those outlined above but there are also some disadvantages improved accuracy by removing human involvement in verificationcost reductions by eliminating third party verificationdecentralization makes it harder to tamper withtransactions are secure private and efficienttransparent technologyprovides a banking alternative and a way to secure personal information for citizens of countries with unstable or underdeveloped governmentssignificant technology cost associated with some blockchainslow transactions per secondhistory of use in illicit activities such as on the dark webregulation varies by jurisdiction and remains uncertaindata storage limitationsbenefits of blockchainstransactions on the blockchain network are approved by thousands of computers and devices this removes almost all people from the verification process resulting in less human error and an accurate record of information even if a computer on the network were to make a computational mistake the error would only be made to one copy of the blockchain and not be accepted by the rest of the network typically consumers pay a bank to verify a transaction or a notary to sign a document blockchain eliminates the need for third party verification and with it their associated costs for example business owners incur a small fee when they accept credit card payments because banks and payment processing companies have to process those transactions bitcoin on the other hand does not have a central authority and has limited transaction fees blockchain does not store any of its information in a central location instead the blockchain is copied and spread across a network of computers whenever a new block is added to the blockchain every computer on the network updates its blockchain to reflect the change by spreading that information across a network rather than storing it in one central database blockchain becomes more difficult to tamper with transactions placed through a central authority can take up to a few days to settle if you attempt to deposit a check on friday evening for example you may not actually see funds in your account until monday morning financial institutions operate during business hours usually five days a week but a blockchain works 24 hours a day seven days a week and 365 days a year on some blockchains transactions can be completed in minutes and considered secure after just a few this is particularly useful for cross border trades which usually take much longer because of time zone issues and the fact that all parties must confirm payment processing many blockchain networks operate as public databases meaning anyone with an internet connection can view a list of the network s transaction history although users can access transaction details they cannot access identifying information about the users making those transactions it is a common misperception that blockchain networks like bitcoin are fully anonymous they are actually pseudonymous because there is a viewable address that can be associated with a user if the information gets out once a transaction is recorded its authenticity must be verified by the blockchain network after the transaction is validated it is added to the blockchain block each block on the blockchain contains its unique hash and the unique hash of the block before it therefore the blocks cannot be altered once the network confirms them many blockchains are entirely open source software this means that everyone can view its code this gives auditors the ability to review cryptocurrencies like bitcoin for security however it also means there is no real authority on who controls bitcoin s code or how it is edited because of this anyone can suggest changes or upgrades to the system if a majority of the network users agree that the new version of the code with the upgrade is sound and worthwhile then bitcoin can be updated private or permission blockchains may not allow for public transparency depending on how they are designed or their purpose these types of blockchains might be made only for an organization that wishes to track data accurately without allowing anyone outside of the permissioned users to see it alternatively there might come a point where publicly traded companies are required to provide investors with financial transparency through a regulator approved blockchain reporting system using blockchains in business accounting and financial reporting would prevent companies from altering their financials to appear more profitable than they really are perhaps the most profound facet of blockchain and cryptocurrency is the ability for anyone regardless of ethnicity gender location or cultural background to use it according to the world bank an estimated 1 4 billion adults do not have bank accounts or any means of storing their money or wealth 8 moreover nearly all of these individuals live in developing countries where the economy is in its infancy and entirely dependent on cash these people are often paid in physical cash they then need to store this physical cash in hidden locations in their homes or other places incentivizing robbers or violence while not impossible to steal crypto makes it more difficult for would be thieves drawbacks of blockchainsalthough blockchain can save users money on transaction fees the technology is far from free for example the bitcoin network s proof of work system to validate transactions consumes vast amounts of computational power in the real world the energy consumed by the millions of devices on the bitcoin network is more than pakistan consumes annually 9some solutions to these issues are beginning to arise for example bitcoin mining farms have been set up to use solar power excess natural gas from fracking sites or energy from wind farms bitcoin is a perfect case study for the possible inefficiencies of blockchain bitcoin s pow system takes about 10 minutes to add a new block to the blockchain at that rate it s estimated that the blockchain network can only manage about seven transactions per second tps 10 although other cryptocurrencies such as ethereum perform better than bitcoin blockchain still limits them legacy brand visa for context can process 65 000 tps 11solutions to this issue have been in development for years there are currently blockchain projects that claim tens of thousands of tps ethereum is rolling out a series of upgrades that include data sampling binary large objects blobs and rollups these improvements are expected to increase network participation reduce congestion decrease fees and increase transaction speeds 12the other issue with many blockchains is that each block can only hold so much data the block size debate has been and continues to be one of the most pressing issues for the scalability of blockchains in the future while confidentiality on the blockchain network protects users from hacks and preserves privacy it also allows for illegal trading and activity on the blockchain network the most cited example of blockchain being used for illicit transactions is probably the silk road an online dark web illegal drug and money laundering marketplace operating from february 2011 until october 2013 when the fbi shut it down 13the dark web allows users to buy and sell illegal goods without being tracked by using the tor browser and make illicit purchases in bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies this is in stark contrast to u s regulations which require financial service providers to obtain information about their customers when they open an account they are supposed to verify the identity of each customer and confirm that they do not appear on any list of known or suspected terrorist organizations 14illicit activity accounted for only 0 34 of all cryptocurrency transactions in 2023 15this system can be seen as both a pro and a con it gives anyone access to financial accounts but allows criminals to transact more easily many have argued that the good uses of crypto like banking the unbanked world outweigh the bad uses of cryptocurrency especially when most illegal activity is still accomplished through untraceable cash many in the crypto space have expressed concerns about government regulation of cryptocurrencies several jurisdictions are tightening control over certain types of crypto and other virtual currencies however no regulations have yet been introduced that focus on restricting blockchain uses and development only certain products created using it another significant implication of blockchains is that they require storage this may not appear to be substantial because we already store lots of information and data however as time passes the number of growing blockchain uses will require more storage especially on blockchains where nodes store the entire chain currently data storage is centralized in large centers but if the world transitions to blockchain for every industry and use its exponentially growing size would mean more advanced techniques to reduce its size or that any participants would need to continually upgrade their storage this could become significantly expensive in terms of both money and physical space needed as the bitcoin blockchain itself was more than 581 gigabytes on june 29 2024 and this blockchain records only bitcoin transactions 16 this is small compared to the amount of data stored in large data centers but a growing number of blockchains will only add to the amount of storage already required for the connected and digital world 