Blockchain Data Storage Could Soon Be The New Standard

coincentral.com

With growing concerns over data privacy and security, users are calling for companies to find better ways of handling sensitive information. Blockchain data storage has the potential to offer much-improved security solutions compared to traditional databases used today. But what are the concepts, concerns, and advantages of using the blockchain data storage? Let’s take a look.

Why Move to Blockchain Data Storage?

Data breaches have been a pressing issue for many tech companies over the past few decades. With an increasing amount of sensitive data stored on company databases, we have continued to see new hacks affecting a wide range of industries, leaving user data exposed. As a result, hackers have acquired information that has led to widespread identity theft, illegal data sells on the dark web, and other major concerns.

For example, the 2017 Equifax hack exposed tax ID and driver’s license details of 145.5 million people. In 2018, the issue only appears to be getting worse. Dixons Carphone reported that 7 million individuals had been affected by a hack that started in July 2017 but wasn’t discovered until June 2018.

In many cases, consumers not only have to be worried about the possibilities of such hacks but also the fact that companies are often unaware of the issues for months or even years.

While the implementation of GDPR does help make sure that more companies comply with data privacy standards, better security is also a big factor that companies need to research and implement.

GDPR

Potential Concerns for Blockchain

Since data has traditionally been stored on centralized databases, it has become more likely that any given hack will lead to a large amount of data exposure for a large number of users.

Despite the promises of blockchain to provide better security, it’s still important to consider some of the risks of blockchain implementation. Contrary to popular belief, the blockchain is indeed hackable. Sybil attacks, routing attacks, and DDoS attacks all present major security challenges for emerging blockchain projects.

For PoW consensus algorithm projects, 51% attacks executed by miners on blockchain networks have proven to cause big security issues for a number of projects. The Verge, and other projects, for example, have faced regular 51% attacks.

The fact that blockchain technology is still relatively new also means that the teams in charge of securing data have to consider a variety of possible (oftentimes theoretical) security scenarios. They then must design sophisticated solutions to prevent data breaches from occurring. In several cases, projects have had to make reactive changes to their security measures instead of being more proactive in preventing threats.

Scalability Needs Improvement

While security is a major concern, it’s not the only factor for companies and users to think about. Even with the advent of decentralized blockchains, there are still a lot of developments that need to happen. 

It may take some time before companies and users can consider large-scale data storage on the blockchain an overall better solution. While security is essential for blockchain data storage adoption, so is usability.

In mid-2018, most of the major blockchains haven’t demonstrated enough scalability yet to meet potential increases in user demand. When thinking about cryptocurrency payments on the blockchain, the amount of data storage needed is actually quite low, considering the large amounts of data needed to save photo and video files. 

Projects like Storj and Filecoin are working on making cloud storage of large files not only possible but also practical.

For many companies and users, however, blockchains have an even more immediate potential to store sensitive data that requires less storage. For example, financial and identity-related information stored on the blockchain could soon become practical to implement even with a few small improvements in scalability.

There are a number of scaling technologies like sharding and off-chain protocols being researched and implemented. These can make blockchain data storage more scalable, potentially allowing millions (or even billions) of users to store data securely.

Advantages of Blockchain Data Storage

Even with these concerns, blockchain still has a few advantages over traditional data storage security. As mentioned above, traditional data storage solutions rely heavily upon centralized databases to maintain security. For hackers, the target to attack is much clearer. Once a hack is successfully executed on a centralized database, vast amounts of data can be accessed by hackers.

With blockchains and distributed ledger technologies, however, hacks are much more difficult to execute. In Storj, for example, only a small amount of data can be accessed in a hack since data is encrypted and distributed across a large network of databases.

Blockchain ultimately aims to eliminate the all-too-common news reports of large-scale hacks which affect millions of users as seen in companies of today that rely upon centralized databases.

The Potential of Blockchain Data Storage

A number of blockchain projects are aiming to make data storage more secure. The potential benefits promise to be groundbreaking for end users. Blockchain projects not only have the potential to create the architecture for inherently more secure data storage systems but also to allow individual users to have full authority over which parties are allowed to view data. 

In many cases, blockchain projects are using native cryptocurrencies as part of tokenomic models. These allow users to monetize from any third-party data use while also preventing any possibility of identity theft and other issues seen in recent years due to large-scale data breaches.

Final Thoughts

With continued large-scale hacks of traditional databases, consumers are increasingly wary of vulnerable, outdated data storage technologies as well whether or not companies are keeping sensitive data safe.

Yes, blockchain technology still needs some improvements in security and scalability before it can be considered the hands-down, go-to solution for data storage. 

It’s still to be determined when exactly blockchain can become the ultimate solution and when user adoption will follow. Still, there are many signs of a momentum shift away from traditional database technologies and towards better data security via decentralized blockchains.

This article by Delton Rhodes was originally published at "CoinCentral.com: https://coincentral.com/blockchain-data-storage/

Improving Defense Industry Technology with Blockchain

coincentral.com

The global defense industry continues to be a big part of national economies for many nations throughout the world. In the past, defense industry research and development led to the creation of many beneficial, innovative technologies, including the internet and GPS.

Nowadays, defense technology has an opportunity to become even more innovative with blockchain technology. So, what are some of the biggest blockchain research projects for the defense industry so far? And how can blockchain reshape the future of military technology?

Widespread Adoption of Blockchain Expected in The Defense Industry

According to “Launchpad to Relevance: Aerospace & Defense Technology Vision 2018,” a recent research report published by Accenture, six in seven (86%) aerospace/defense companies plan to integrate blockchain within three years.

While this industry has been quite innovative in the past, there are a number of stats published that show just how cutting-edge the industry plans to be in the future. For example, 97% of aerospace and defense executives said they are willing to digitally reinvent their business and industry.

Additionally, of the 18 industries surveyed by Accenture, the aerospace/defense industry was ranked as the third most accepting of potential blockchain integration. One of the biggest reasons for the defense industry to adopt blockchain (like many other industries) is the need for better data.

The report goes on to say, “Inaccurate, manipulated, or biased data can have far-reaching, adverse consequences, such as corrupted business insights and skewed decisions.”

This presents a big issue as 80% of firms in the industry surveyed are increasingly reliant upon data to help make better decisions. The veracity and immutability of blockchain-driven technology could very well solve this problem.

Major Developments to Look Out For

In past years, we have seen a lot of innovation come from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). For example, some of the biggest early innovations in robotics technology were displayed during the DARPA robotics challenge.

This competition lasted for a period of 33 months from 2012 to 2015. It featured some of the world’s top robotics teams, which created robots that worked to complete complex tasks in dangerous, degraded, human-engineered environments.

Now, we are beginning to see DARPA and other defense agencies work towards increasing the adoption of blockchain. For example, DARPA is working internally on the creation of a blockchain-based encrypted messaging service that is designed to be secure and impenetrable to foreign attacks.

The U.S. DoD is also working with companies with expertise in blockchain innovation. In May 2017, Indiana Technology and Manufacturing Companies (ITAMCO) was awarded a Phase 1 grant(sufficient funding for around 10 months of work).

This was from the U.S. Department of Defense to develop the cybersecurity architecture for a blockchain-based messaging application. Although there isn’t news to confirm whether or not the project has received the green light for Phase 2, this approval would mean that ITAMCO would be awarded a multi-year funding agreement to take its concept to a fully-functional prototype.

Phase 3 approval would give the project the ability to start real-world implementation and commercialization of its decentralized blockchain messaging app.

U.S. Future Blockchain Defense Spending Outlook

Although it’s uncertain for now just how much money, resources, and personnel will go towards the development of blockchain applications for military defense, it’s clear that the overall adoption trend is positive for blockchain.

For instance, in December 2017, President Donald Trump authorized a $700 billion defense spending bill, part of which calls for a mandate for conducting a research study regarding blockchain-based cybersecurity applications.

The bill includes the following section, “an assessment of efforts by foreign powers, extremist organizations, and criminal networks to utilize such technologies;…[and] an assessment of the use or planned use of such technologies by the Federal Government and critical infrastructure networks.”

Global Outlook: Defense and Blockchain

Several other nations besides the United States are also looking to adopt blockchain technologies in defense programs. For example, news sources have reported that Voentelecom, a telecommunication company that provides communication and integration services to federal executive authorities and the Ministry of Defense in Russia, is considering possible applications for blockchain in the Russian military.

Similarly, a report published in a 2016 military journal proposes that China should also use blockchain for its ability to quickly distribute funds and protect sensitive data (i.e. personnel locations and weapons lifecycle statuses).

In 2018, there are still a few defense publications in China such as this one with a positive outlook on the potential applications of blockchain in defense.

In most cases, it appears that the current focus of potential applications of blockchain technology in militaries around the world is more defensive in nature. Essentially, data protection and accuracy seem to be at the top of defensive spending agendas when it comes to blockchain development.

Potential Long-term Impacts of Military Defense Research of Blockchain Technology

Currently, it appears that blockchain will play an increasingly prominent role in the future of military applications. Regardless, if military research and development ultimately have a direct benefit for defense applications, the general public could also see major benefits.

As we have seen in some past defense research and development programs, the gains of technological progress made by militaries are not limited to just the defense industry. Advancements in cryptography could ultimately benefit the security of the future Web 3.0 by protecting user data on decentralized social media platforms and allowing for greater security of cryptocurrency payments.

Even though it might be easy to think that governments will be extremely secretive about the technology behind such innovations, history has shown that this isn’t always the case. For example, SHA-1 and SHA-2, two of the most important cryptographic hash functions in the history of data security, were actually originally developed by the U.S. government.

So, not only does the defense industry benefit from blockchain technology. But with a new age of blockchain research amongst the world’s top military powers, we could realize the benefits of more secure blockchains on the public side as well.

This article by Delton Rhodes was originally published at "CoinCentral.com: https://coincentral.com/defense-industry-technology/

How Businesses Use Mobile Marketing to Their Advantage (Infographic)

appgeeks.org

Among the vast array of modern technologies that have changed the way companies handle marketing, one of the most prominent innovations are smartphones. Just think about how often do you check your smartphone on a daily basis.

The number of active smartphone users has surpassed the one billion mark and, according to research, people check their phones 80 times on average within 24 hours. This, in turn, gives marketers an excellent opportunity for advertising.

In a nutshell, mobile marketing is a multi-channel strategy which includes a wide range of activities that connect advertisers to a broader customer base through mobile devices and networks. This is excellent for marketers since it increases the value of the advertising that gets through.

On the other hand, when done right, this type of marketing provides customers with personalized information so that they can get what they need exactly when they need it, even on the go. Basically, it’s a win-win!

Being early adopters of this marketing trend gave many renewed brands a tremendous advantage over their competitors. Our team at App Geeks has created the infographic below where you can learn their mobile marketing campaigns, as well as many interesting facts that you didn’t know about the mobile takeover.

Original Post: https://appgeeks.org/blog/mobile-marketing-infographic/

The First Business Model Blockchain is Upending: Payments

coincentral.com

The Payment Industry is a Business Model Blockchain Will Upgrade

Blockchain technology is providing the payments industry with the unique opportunity to upgrade their efficiency and security while lowering operating costs significantly.  The immutable and unalterable nature of this revolutionary technology makes it ideally suited to handle the demands of the payment processing sector. There has already been considerable effort put forth by major financial firms to integrate this game-changing protocol into the industry.

Already, the major credit card firms, Visa, Master Card, and American Express are working towards implementing a blockchain-based system to improve their current business models.  The advantages of blockchain technology are clear. At this point in adoption, companies that fail to join the “blockchain” train will get left at the station.  In other words, blockchain technology could soon be the new standard for the payments industry and if all goes as planned; the transformation could happen much sooner than you think.

6 Ways Blockchain Changes Payments

Blockchain technology is transforming business on a global scale. The payments industry is benefiting greatly from the integration of these two economic sectors.  The demand for blockchain-based services has grown so much over the last 5-years that blockchain providers such as HEFFX are flourishing in the market.  HEFFX provides companies easy access to blockchain-based protocols. Since its inception, this firm has seen steady growth as the benefits of a blockchain business model become better understood in the marketplace.

1. Increased Security

Cybercrime has become a plague to the internet over the last decade and analysts are predicting over $6 trillion in losses to be incurred by 2021.  Payment processors hold a lot of responsibility for protecting personal data and blockchain technology could help to keep your information safer in the future.

Chart Showing Data Breaches of Credit Card Information

Blockchain transactions can hold an incredible amount of details including the date, time, amount, account profiles, smart contract agreements, and the list goes on.  All of this information could be used to verify your transaction and confirm your purchase.

2. Verification Services

Taken a step further a blockchain personal identification system could be integrated to allow for the authenticity of a payment’s sender, or receiver, to be confirmed.  Payment companies such as VISA report billions in stolen revenue due to unauthorized transactions every year. By switching to a blockchain-based system, they could eventually eliminate much of the fraud encountered due to hacking and identity theft.

3. Computer Breaches

Blockchain technology is nearly impossible to hack because of the decentralized nature of the technology.  A hacker would need to attack thousands of computers at the same time to alter one piece of code on the blockchain.  This makes it very cost-prohibiting for a hacker to choose this course of action.   Companies can gain additional client trust by selecting a blockchain-based business model.

4. Cross-Border Payments

The global economy is shrinking. Today, it is common for corporations to have to send large amounts of capital internationally.  Such cross-border payments can be an extremely cost prohibitive due to exchange rates and third-party verification fees associated with transferring large sums to a different country.  While these fees can be troubling for corporations, they can be debilitating for an individual attempting to send funds internationally.

Thankfully, the peer-to-peer nature of blockchain technology eliminates the need for any third party verification systems. A company can send $1 million worth of Ethereum just as quickly as an individual could send $10.  The streamlining capabilities of the technology are undeniable and precisely what the payments sector needs to curb the excessive waste the current business model possesses.

International Money Transfers

5. Cost Effective

A traditional fiat currency transaction can require the involvement of over 30 different third-party processing and verification systems.  Each one of these firms adds a small fee to the transaction.  A business model that incorporated blockchain technology could eliminate all of these fees while providing a more secure solution to the industry.

6. Blockchain Transaction Times

Not only is sending fiat currency expensive but it is also slow.  Depending on the amount and destination of your funds, you could be waiting for over a week to receive your money.  Considering that the average blockchain transaction takes under 20 seconds, the winner is clear.  Firms such as the African-based processor BitPesa allows companies to send money via the blockchain without the delays found in traditional fund transfers.

Growing Adoption

Blockchain is the #1 emerging technology of our time and all aspects of our financial sector will be changed thanks to this upending-technological advancement.  There is already a slew of cryptocurrencies that focus primarily on providing solutions to the payments industry. You can expect this list to grow over the coming years as the market continues to develop.

When speaking on blockchain integration into the payments sector, one would be remiss if they didn’t, at least briefly, touch on Ripple (XRP).  Ripple is a real-time gross settlement system that was specifically designed to provide banks access to the benefits of blockchain technology with affordable implementation cost.  It has become hugely popular since its release in 2012. Over the last year, Ripple has managed to secure partnerships with some of the largest financial institutions in the game including 61 Japanese banks, Santander, and MoneyGram – to name a few.

Upgrade the Current Business Model with Blockchain

Given the continued success of platforms such as Ripple, it is easy to see the direction in which the payments industry is heading.  Investors and financial institutions alike can benefit from the advancements brought to the payments industry through the integration of blockchain technology. Already there are numerous Ripple-like coins gaining momentum in the sector.

This article by David Hamilton was originally published at "CoinCentral.com": https://coincentral.com/the-first-business-model-blockchain-is-upending-payments/

The Must-Have Tools to Run Your Digital Agency Like a Boss

clicktime.com

The key to running a successful agency is to not let it run you. Your job — in addition to providing great value for your clients — is to make sure that operations, billing, HR, etc., are working like a well-oiled machine.

We’ve put together a list of tools and technology to help you focus on the things that make your agency successful and stay focused on your customers.

Time Tracking Software

As a digital agency, it all boils down to how you and your team spend, bill, and manage time. While some agencies may have started with (or may still be using) an Excel spreadsheet to track hours, it can be quite painful to maintain accurate data — especially as you grow.

Because every minute counts in an agency environment, you'll want to get your time-tracking technology squared away quickly.

But, what are some of the things you might want in a time tracking platform? Let’s have a look!

Easy Timesheets

You want something that’s user-friendly for everyone on the team, and offers a mobile app, automated time tracking features, and easy-to-access reports and visual summaries of timesheet approvals and completion.

If it's not easy, your team won't accurately track their time.

Agency Insights

Tracking time worked on projects is simple. What is much more interesting, is how employee time affects agency operations.

Beyond just having visibility into how long something took and the associated billable hours, it's important to understand:

• Employee utilization by person, team, and client
• How actual costs stack up against estimates
• How costs are allocated across different activities or groups

There are dozens of reasons why agencies should track time, and while it might not be the most enjoyable part of running a business, it's the most effective way to measure operations and accurately bill clients.

Employee Resource Planning

Knowing the capacity of your workforce is at the core of managing your projects and starting new ones.

Imagine how much more effective your agency could be if you had real-time visibility into employee capacity? Managing employee capacity is key to keeping costs down and knowing when to hire new team members.

That’s what resource planning software is designed to help you do.

While the specific features vary across platforms, the goal is the same: to streamline the management of your people and their hours. And the larger your agency becomes, the more important it is to properly understand and schedule future employee time.

Expense Management

How many expenses does your team submit each month? How much time does it take to enter the data, collect the receipts, submit them to Accounting or HR, and then reimburse employees?

If these questions are making you feel uncomfortable, it's probably time to move to a more modern expense management system. There are literally hundreds of different expense management software that can save your organization time and money, and reduce confusion around who can expense and approve various gifts, drinks, meals, mileage, etc.

CRM

Customer relationship management is critical to running a successful agency.

As your business grows, you'll need a system that will organize and manage the relationships with existing and past customers, as well as your prospects and leads.

CRMs are great for:

• Storing and maintaining accurate customer information
• Managing customer communications
• Understanding and measuring customer engagement
• Tracking billing and other payment history
• Improving customer communications for your sales and customer success teams

Unsurprisingly, there's a wealth of great information about customer relationship management on the Salesforce website. 🙂

Also, to add on to the third point, it may also be a good idea to automate your social media for optimal engagement.

Project Management

Every agency needs to manage projects, and there are a number of simple project management tools that can significantly increase your employee's ability to get work done quickly.

Hubspot has a great overview of project management software that we recommend you check out!

Some of the more popular apps include:

• Asana
• Basecamp
• Trello
• JIRA
• Office 365
• Wrike
• Wunderlist

Finding the right project management software for your business is not an easy task, but much like time tracking, it's an essential part of running an agency.

Team Communication

How do you communicate to your team throughout the day? In-person? Phone? Text?

At ClickTime, we're huge fans of Slack, which makes it easy to chat with anyone in your organization. Slack allows you to create specific topics or channels, which help guide discussions, and makes it easy to build simple integrations with your CRM, time tracking, expense management, and other software.

Slack is a great way to communicate with both your onsite and remote employees. We couldn't give it a stronger recommendation!

Original Post: https://www.clicktime.com/blog/must-have-tools-to-run-your-digital-agency

Google play app store optimization

By Michael Kordvani

App store optimization is daunting. It is complex, it is tough, and chances are you will mess it up the first time. If you want to avoid all the hassle, we recommend you to hire a mobile app marketing agency, especially if you are in a pinch. We're not discouraging you, it's just how app store optimization is: tough and requires lots of practice.

Regardless of whether you have mobile app marketing services to do the hard work for you or you want to do it yourself – read on to find out how Google play ASO works because either way, you will need to know about what you are investing your resources in.

Keywords, keywords, and keywords

The crux of any app store optimization whether it is the Apple store or the Google play store is the keyword selection. Start off by creating a spreadsheet to record your brainstormed ideas. To start off, write down any and every word that could be used to describe your app. Alternatively, you could use online tools such as Google AdWords for fresh ideas.

Find out what keywords your competitors are using. With more than 3.6 million apps in the Play store, chances are a lot of your brainstormed keywords will already be in use.

Take your keyword search up a notch by analyzing the reviews on apps similar to yours; the adjectives used to review those apps are what a user will most likely put in the search bar.

One keyword will always rank higher than the other. Mobile app marketing tools will help you out greatly in this step.

A/B testing

The mobile app marketing strategy doesn’t end with collecting rich keywords. In fact, you don’t even know if one keyword list performs better than the other. With such uncertainty, how is your mobile app marketing plan expected to succeed?

Through A/B testing, of course!

To explain briefly, A/B testing or split testing compares two versions of the app listing with each to find out which performs better or has higher conversion rates. It eliminates guesswork and confusion; whichever version of the two performs better, you keep that one and discard the less successful.

Best part? Google has its own A/B testing tool in the Google Play developer console. You can find out more on the Play Console help page.

Monitor

Are you achieving the goals you have set out? Keep track of key performance indicators to evaluate the success of your app store optimization efforts. The best mobile app marketing companies and mobile app marketing agencies regularly monitor their performance and evolve accordingly.

Lastly, don’t forget to read the reviews and feedbacks your users give you. Actively work on improving your app because no mobile marketing campaigns or mobile app marketing services can replace a great app. Remember, they can only boost it. 

Should Your Company Become a Blockchain Business?

coincentral.com

Blockchain technology is well-known for its ability to disrupt many of the world’s top industries. For consumers, oftentimes, this can be seen as a benefit. However, modern businesses can also benefit from blockchain technology. Previously, we discussed a few key ways blockchain can benefit the creation of new businesses as well as compared decentralized business models and centralized ones. In this article, we’ll look at some of the determining factors to help you choose whether or not it’s practical for your company to become a blockchain business.

Determining Costs and Practicality

Similar to considering any business spending, it’s essential to understand the costs and potential revenues of becoming a blockchain business. For smaller companies, it’s usually not all that practical from a financial standpoint to develop a completely customized enterprise-level technology. If history is any indicator, early adoption doesn’t always bring immediate benefits.

The rise of blockchain certainly draws many comparisons to the emergence of mobile phone apps around a decade ago. At that time, lots of companies saw the need for dedicated mobile apps for very specific use cases. Today, however, a vast majority of companies don’t have this same mentality. While there are plenty of companies that do still use and profit from the development of mobile apps, many didn’t see enough benefits or returns on investment. When considering whether or not your company needs a dedicated distributed ledger system or decentralized application (dapp), it’s important to spend according to anticipated user adoption and not just because you see blockchain as the latest trend.

As mentioned in our post about crypto trading, FOMO is a big issue to overcome. This applies to not only cryptocurrency investors but also businesses who think it’s a must to develop large-scale blockchain projects or even create their own cryptocurrencies. In a lot of instances, it might not be beneficial to go this route.

Becoming A Blockchain Business: Adoption Is the Key

While it might be difficult for some businesses to realize the immediate positive impact of blockchain adoption, it’s essential to consider the long-term possibilities. As we discussed in an article about blockchain and the autonomous trucking industry, many traditional sectors of the economy are already beginning to see the impact of blockchain technology even after its initial implementation. Similar to B2B SaaS, you don’t necessarily have to have one million customers to realize the benefits of blockchain either. 

For many small businesses, blockchain can be a game-changer. For example, blockchain can help small companies better organize the work of internal employees to maximize time, energy, and resources. Shipping logistics, inventory management, and sales analytics could all see vast improvements thanks to blockchain. This could potentially benefit everyone, from solopreneurs to top companies like Amazon. Companies of all sizes in healthcare, real estate, and other major economic sectors could also see improvements driven by blockchain technology.

Increasing Practicality

If you’re an small business owner, you might be thinking that blockchain seems like a good solution, but think it’s impractical or too costly to implement. This might be the case in May 2018 but will likely not remain that way for very long. Think of the adoption of any new technology, from physical products (flat screen televisions, graphics chips, smartphones) to digital products (cloud storage, B2B SaaS, etc). All of these technologies have experienced similar development patterns. Initially, all were pretty costly to create.

Most of the time, the quality wasn’t all that good for the amount of required capital investment. After just a few years, markets typically became increasingly competitive. Most importantly, the technology behind the products became more innovative. In turn, this lowered costs.

Blockchain could very well follow the same development pattern. While being an early adopter important, it’s important to note that investing too much now can mean less budget flexibility in just a few years from now when the technology becomes not only cheaper but also much more accessible and higher quality.

Look at Easy-to-Implement Market Solutions First

For those companies that don’t have the resources or need to build their own customized technology to become a blockchain business, there is an increasing number of solutions looking to provide businesses with the tools necessary to build applications without needing much technical knowledge.

Many blockchain projects already allow businesses to create their own smart contracts, increase file storage space, and much more fairly easily. These implementations can also be done at lower costs and will allow your business to decide whether or not implementing blockchain solutions is practical or even necessary.

We are already beginning to see organizations emerging to bring together traditionally independent lines of work for the common cause of developing beneficial blockchain technologies. From groups like ALLi for authors and BiTA for trucking companies, it’s clear that new industries are beginning to not only advance the mission of blockchain in general but also make it much more accessible even for both individual workers and smaller companies.

Conclusion

Even if you might not currently see how blockchain technology could benefit your business, it’s clear that many changes are already in the works. Being an early adopter is good, but only if you have a well-planned strategy on how such investments could lead to solid direct financial (or time optimization) returns. It’s important to realize that blockchain might not have a big enough potential impact on your current business to make it necessary to change business models or invest in expensive solutions.

Regardless if this is the case or not, you should consider looking at some industry-specific organizations and projects that are looking to promote the development of blockchain that could be applied to your business. For some businesses, quicker implementation could be the most beneficial strategy. For others, it might be better to wait until the technology becomes more accessible. Oftentimes, the best solutions are already available on the market. Some of these solutions are actually the easiest and cheapest to implement. 

This article by Delton Rhodes was originally published at "CoinCentral.com": https://coincentral.com/should-your-company-become-a-blockchain-business/