In the early days of crypto and blockchain, both were brushed off as a joke by countless people worldwide. A form of money you can’t physically handle, seriously? It was the type of thing you’d commonly hear coming from cynics.
However, it’s impossible to ignore the global impact of blockchain and the various currencies and decentralized projects based on it now. Blockchain has greatly impacted modern society by revolutionising some of the main industries that keep our world running.
From defence and the aviation industry to humanitarian relief and even the music industry, the power of blockchain is being harnessed worldwide. Its ability to transform our world for the better is impossible to ignore.
“Every smart person that I admire in the world, and those I semi-fear, is focused on this concept of crypto for a reason. They understand that this is the driving force of the fourth industrial revolution: steam engine, electricity, then the microchip – blockchain and crypto is the fourth.” – Brock Pierce
Today, we’re going to go to the root of where it all began, the finance sector, to see nine financial industries that blockchain is disrupting massively in a positive way for crypto investors worldwide.
But first, a word of warning: If, by the end of this article, you wish to invest in cryptocurrencies based on the blockchain, always make sure you do your research beforehand. The cryptocurrency sector is highly volatile and plagued by various scam platforms looking to trick newcomers. So, always use a well-liked exchange platform to buy, sell and trade crypto. If you are wondering where you might be able to locate a list of such platforms, do not worry as we got you covered! On top of our list is this user-broker mediator which shined a bit harder than other platforms over the course of 2022. Wonder why? Find for yourself and excel at your crypto journey!
Now, with that word of advice out of the way, let’s begin!
Blockchain And Banking
The first place to start is the global banking sector. Historically, centralised banks have been vital foundations of modern society through their ability to provide secure storage of money and the ability for clients to transfer cash as and when needed.
However, the current centralised banking system is massively flawed when compared to the likes of blockchain. After all, the digitised, secure, and tamper-proof ledgers that define blockchain technology can serve all of the same functions that a centralised bank does and provide a far higher degree of financial accuracy and an excellent way to share information across the global financial industry.
In an effort to keep up and seize the initiative with blockchain technology, a series of major banks have already jumped on the blockchain wagon. Take banking giant JP Morgan, for example, who recently released their own blockchain-based token called JPM Coin, which was created to allow the bank’s business account clients to execute flawless cross-border payments in real-time.
One of centralised banks’ biggest sources of income is facilitating payments for their clients. In 2022, it was expected that cross-border payments worldwide were to hit an overall value of $35 trillion.
However, with blockchain technology, this could be massively disrupted because the decentralised technology offers people the chance to send cross-border payments in a far faster, quicker, and more secure method thanks to its ability to cut out the middleman out of financial transactions.
Every day, more people see the advantages of using blockchain technology over banks. For example, the number of blockchain-facilitated cross-border payments in 2022 was 122 million, but in 2025 this number is expected to skyrocket to 1.8 billion.
Just take the blockchain-based company called Ripple, for example. Ripple has secured successful partnerships with the likes of Western Union and Santander Bank to improve how global financial payments are carried out. Ripple recently created the decentralised RippleNet payments network that dramatically cuts down the time of conventional international bank transfers from five days to three seconds.
Blockchain-Based Stock Trading
In days gone by, stock trading was notoriously difficult to access for the average person. In recent years, several platforms have worked hard to make accessing the stock market easier for new investors. However, blockchain-based companies have little such significant advances.
Take the company TØ.com, for example, who have made it their mission to facilitate stock trades online using blockchain technology through the tZERO platform.
The tZERO platform incorporates secure distributed ledgers with current trading processes to lower payment time and fees and improve clarity and audibility.
In addition, Credit Suisse is also making great strides to lessen payment times, and in April 2021, it made stock market history when it settled two stock trades in one day, one at 11 AM and one at 3 PM, for the first time ever.
The role of blockchain in the global stock markets is being powered further thanks to partnerships being made between existing blockchain startups and existing exchanges. For example, the Blockchain-based firm Chain successfully integrated a live blockchain that united Nasdaq’s stock exchange with Citi’s banking infrastructure.
Nasdaq recently teamed up with R3 to build a platform based on R3’s blockchain software, Corda, which aimed to allow financial organisations to create and oversee their own decentralised asset marketplaces.
Charity
Worldwide, there are countless charities for different causes. But where good-hearted people seek to do good, ill-intended people seek to rip them off, and charities are no exception.
When donating to charities, it’s important for donors to accurately track where their money is going, who is controlling it, and how it’s being spent.
Blockchain can enable all of this and more. Blockchain has the ability to tackle the main issues surrounding charity organises, such as accountability, efficiency, and transparency, to ensure the money reaches the place or people it was originally promised to.
An example of a company already executing blockchain in the charity field is the BitGive Foundation. This Bitcoin-centred charity organisation utilises a protected and translucent ledger to provide better transparency and allow donors to see how their funds are used worldwide.
Recently, the BitGive Foundation released a blockchain-based donation platform called GiveTrack, which lets people transfer, monitor, and get a permanent register of all charity donations made worldwide, thus providing greater trust between global charities and potential donors.
Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding has become a massively popular industry in recent years and works by giving individual investors a unique chance to fund innovative creators and entrepreneurs directly. In recent months, blockchain has increasingly played a role in crowdfunding.
Take the recent movie BRAID, for example. BRAID was the world’s first mainstream film to be almost entirely financed via a “crowd sale” of decentralised assets on the Ethereum blockchain. The film eventually premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Another example of blockchain-based crowdfunding is via Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). This is when companies sell blockchain-based crypto tokens within their companies. This can be compared to how an established publicly traded company sells stocks.
An up-and-coming name in the ICO field is a firm called Waves which is a platform that provides unique solutions for people and businesses aiming to store, manage, and issue digital currencies and decentralised tokens.
Decentralised Crypto Exchanges
The irony is not lost on many crypto enthusiasts that most modern crypto exchanges are inherently centralised. With centralisation comes various online security risks from hackers, human errors and corruption. All three are flaws blockchain can help tackle, and the number of blockchain-based crypto exchanges is growing.
A good example is Enigma, a decentralised crypto exchange and investment venue that operates without needing any financial third party.
To stay up to speed, major centralised exchanges such as Binance and Coinbase have developed their platforms to accommodate the decentralised exchange industry. Binance announced the launch of Binance DEX in 2019, and Coinbase bought the peer-to-peer trading (P2P) platform Paradex in 2018.
Wills
Blockchain again comes forward with a range of novel solutions when it comes to the complicated realm of wills after death. As well as verifying the death of the person who’s passed away, there’s also a lot of back and forth regarding the legitimacy of the will and who is owed what in the wake of someone’s death.
Of course, whilst blockchain can’t fix all of the problems commonly associated with wills, it can make many commonly troublesome aspects of the process much more straightforward, such as verifying information and dismissing claims without validity.
In Japan, a startup company called Zweispace is currently in the process of creating a blockchain-based technology for wills that is self-executing. When a person passes away, their blockchain-based technology will automatically allocate assets of inheritance to heirs the moment that it’s confirmed that the trustee has passed away. This removes the need for executors and court actions centring around the validity of the deceased person’s will.
Accounting
It’s not only centralised banks that are beginning to fall in line with public opinion and begin to adopt blockchain technology, several accountancy companies are doing the same too.
For an accountant, keeping track of vital paperwork is a mammoth task. From tax documents and bank statements to spreadsheets and salary slips, an accountant must oversee and inspect a huge amount of data in an often old-fashioned way. With blockchain technology, handling and managing this sensitive paperwork could be digitalised and made much more straightforward.
In addition, blockchain can also help tackle fraud and accounting mistakes made through human error through the use of blockchain-backed data tracking that can utilise AI technology to automate a range of common accounting processes.
Insurance
Globally, the insurance industry is increasingly eyeing blockchain for several ways to improve their work. However, whilst most of the industries on this list seek blockchain solutions to develop new and exciting products, insurance companies differ as they look at blockchain as a way to cut operational costs and provide their customers with a superior experience.
For example, blockchain can manufacture a sole source of truth for transactions between two parties to cut processing times and operational costs for insurance companies.
Naturally, cross-border insurance deals and partnerships are often some of the most difficult to maintain and deal with. So blockchain is increasingly used to mitigate the various obstacles and challenges involved.
Take Insurwave, for example. This is a partnership project between the consulting company EY and the blockchain firm Guardtime. Together, they’ve successfully delivered a blockchain platform centred around the maritime insurance industry.
Insurwave is created on Corda’s distributed ledger technology and forms an unchangeable database between insurers and shipping companies that pave the way for streamlined risk assessment processes and faster payouts regarding claims.
In Conclusion
From being dismissed as a worthless form of technology to driving a revolution across the global financial sector, this article has looked at the numerous ways blockchain is overhauling the financial industry through various sectors currently utilising it to great effect.
The future looks bright for blockchain, that’s for sure! But, as we round off, it’s important to remind our readers about the risks involved in trading in blockchain-based cryptocurrencies. Whilst crypto has the potential for huge rewards; it’s also a volatile space. So always research before investing and utilise a well-like and versatile platform to buy, sell and trade blockchain assets.