187 Things the Blockchain Is Supposed to Fix

Businesses and entrepreneurs are racing to deploy blockchain technology against all manner of problems, and perceived opportunities.
Image may contain Text Number and Symbol
Alyssa Foote

When businesses latch onto a buzzword, it quickly becomes the solution to everything. Not long ago, in the era of “big data,” companies scrambled to add chief data scientists to their ranks. Before that, vendors of all manner touted their innovative social, local, mobile solutions (or SoLoMo, in industry parlance). Lately, corporations have been talking nonstop—on conference panels, in TED Talks, in pitchdecks—about artificial intelligence.

But in this moment, few business trends can compete with the magic of blockchain technology. Blockchains, which use advanced cryptography to store information across networks of computers, could eliminate the need for trusted third parties, like banks, in transactions, legal agreements, and other contracts. The most ardent blockchain-heads believe it has the power to reshape the global financial system, and possibly even the internet as we know it.

Now, as the technology expands from a fringe hacker toy to legitimate business applications, opportunists have flooded the field. Some of the seekers are mercenaries pitching shady or fraudulent tokens, others are businesses looking to cash in on a hot trend, and still others are true believers in the revolutionary and disruptive powers of distributed networks.

Mentions of blockchains and digital currencies on corporate earnings calls doubled in 2017 over the year prior, according to Fortune. Last week at Consensus, the country’s largest blockchain conference, 100 sponsors, including top corporate consulting firms and law firms, hawked their wares.

Now, seemingly every problem in the world can be solved by applying the blockchain. Poverty! Censorship! Endangered species! The rush of new entrants has spawned skepticism even among crypto enthusiasts. On stage at Consensus, Blockchain Capital partner Jimmy Song made waves declaring that "blockchain is not this magical thing where you sprinkle blockchain dust over a problem.”

Nonetheless, entrepreneurs—and promoters—are sprinkling it widely. Here is a noncomprehensive list of the ways blockchain promoters say they will change the world. They run the spectrum from industry-specific (a blockchain project designed to increase blockchain adoption) to global ambitions (fixing the global supply chain’s apparent $9 trillion cash flow issue). We’ve tried to stick as closely to their pitch language as possible and have linked to some projects, but are not endorsing any.

Things Blockchain Technology Will Fix
  • Bots with nefarious intent

  • Skynet

  • People not taking their medicine

  • Device storage that could be used for bitcoin mining

  • Insurance bureaucracy

  • Electronic health record accessibility

  • Health record storage security

  • Health record portability

  • Marine insurance risk

  • Cancer

  • Earning money on personal data

  • Pensions

  • The burden of car ownership

  • Inability to buy anything with cryptocurrency

  • Better marketplaces for nautical shipping services

  • Better ways to advertise to your friends

  • Better ways to trade forex with your friends

  • Ownership shares in ancient sunken treasures

  • Poverty

  • Complying with Know Your Customer laws

  • Complying with Anti-Money-Laundering laws

  • Complying with securities laws in token sales

  • Censorship

  • A use for QR codes

  • Rewards for buying alcohol by subscription

  • Tracing water supplies

  • Dearth of emergency responders

  • High cost of medical information

  • Improved digital identity authentication

  • Managing real estate workflow

  • International real estate purchases

  • Physical branches for crypto banking

  • Physical branches for crypto exchanges

  • Private equity

  • Venture capital

  • AIDS, also online sales of classic Japanese domestic cars

  • Efficiency and transparency at nonprofits

  • Incorporating local preferences in decentralized banking options

  • Boosting sales for local businesses

  • A digital-only investment bank

  • Containers to transport sensitive pharmaceuticals and food

  • Protecting consumer information on mobile

  • Helping mobile phone users monetize their data

  • Not enough interconnection in the world

  • Complexity and risk in the crypto market

  • Expensive AI research

  • Counterfeit goods

  • Connecting “innovation players” and “knowledge holders”

  • Movie industry’s slow and opaque accounting practices

  • Global supply chain’s $9 trillion cash flow issue

  • Trust in the global supply chain

  • Economic crisis

  • Cash flow problems at small and medium-sized businesses

  • Improving the use of data in the transportation and logistics industries

  • Poverty among African farmers

  • Transparency in the food supply chain

  • Ad fraud

  • Fake news

  • False news

  • Settling payments faster

  • Speeding transactions

  • The unbanked

  • The underbanked

  • The bidding process in art and collectibles markets

  • Assessing the value of collectibles

  • Diamond industry’s high banking and forex fees

  • The illicit diamond trade

  • Availability of digital games

  • Currency for eSports

  • Currency for eSports betting

  • Currency for sports betting

  • Storing scholarly articles

  • Health insurance providers billing processes

  • Currency for healthcare providers

  • Shortage of workers with advanced tech skills

  • Lack of diversity in tech

  • Elder care

  • Rights management for photographers

  • Content rights management

  • Simplifying the logo copyrighting process

  • Ticketing industry’s “prevalent issues”

  • Crowdsourcing for legal dispute resolution

  • Securing financial contracts

  • Paper

  • Automation

  • Control of personal data

  • Control of personal credit data

  • No way to spend crypto

  • Advertising for extended reality environments

  • Human suffering

  • Security for luxury watches

  • Authenticity in cannabis sales

  • Crypto rewards for cannabis-focused social media site

  • Crypto payments for rating cryptoassets

  • Crypto payments for taking surveys, watching videos and clicking links

  • Crypto rewards for video game skills

  • Crypto rewards for time spent playing video games

  • Buying, selling and trading your social media friends

  • Crypto rewards for social media sharing

  • Free mobile data for watching ads

  • Crypto rewards for watching entertainment content

  • Gold-backed cryptocurrency

  • Crypto-backed gold

  • Metals-backed cryptocurrency

  • Precious metals-based cryptocurrency

  • “Tokenizing” real world items

  • Nashville apartment buildings

  • Monaco real estate

  • Financial infrastructure for trading within video games

  • Checking ID for purchases like alcohol

  • “Uber for alcohol” on blockchain

  • Inefficiencies in cargo delivery

  • Branded tokens for merchants to reward customers

  • Fraud and corruption among non-profits

  • Better transparency at non-profits

  • Better transparency around impact investing

  • Bitcoin mining uses too much energy

  • Home appliances mining for bitcoin while not in use

  • Bitcoin mining using hydropower

  • Large corporations’ carbon footprints

  • “Decarbonizing” electricity grids

  • Climate change

  • Trust in governments

  • Trust in corporations

  • Trust in social networks

  • Trust in media

  • Universal billing system for travel industry

  • Decentralized Uber and Lyft

  • Online gambling not fair

  • Online gambling sites take commission

  • Helping retailers hurt by Amazon

  • Online retail fraud

  • Paying for things with your face

  • Streamlining interactions among shoppers, retailers and brands

  • Linking content across computers, tablets and phones

  • Ranking apps by their value

  • Aligning creativity and recognition for content creators

  • Improving payments for artists on Spotify and Pandora

  • Online piracy

  • Improving the technology of the Russian gas industry

  • A blockchain equivalent of Amazon, Groupon and Craigslist

  • Too many non-value-added costs

  • Unregulated prison economies

  • Standardizing the value of advertisements

  • Advertising not transparent enough

  • Old real estate practices

  • Free public information from silos

  • Speeding the rendering of animated movies

  • Selling items for crypto instead of regular money

  • Borders

  • Man-in-the-middle hacks

  • Security sacrifices that come with innovation

  • Scams, fraud and counterfeits

  • Tools to build decentralized apps

  • Blockchain infrastructure

  • Removing barriers separating blockchains

  • Safety in buying and selling blockchain tokens

  • Improving privacy in online file storage

  • ICO projects could benefit from the “wisdom of the crowd”

  • Improving privacy of blockchain

  • Decentralized database for decentralized technologies

  • Improving trust and confidence in blockchain system

  • More cohesive user experiences across blockchain and the cloud

  • Democratizing gold trading

  • Giving investors more control of their assets

  • Simplifying the cryptocurrency transaction process

  • Trading indexes as tokens

  • Improving crypto safekeeping solutions

  • Simplifying ICO investment, trading and cryptocurrency

  • Improving institutional-grade crypto asset management

  • “Painstakingly slow” manual crypto wallet process

  • More open global markets

  • Easier way to invest in real estate

  • Easier way to invest in Swiss real estate

  • Easier way to combine smart contracts with crowdfunded home loans

  • Easier way to borrow against crypto holdings

  • Faster porn industry payment options

  • Lower porn industry payment fees

  • Identifying and verifying users in online dating

  • Improving traditional banking services for crypto world

  • Cryptocurrency based on Game Theory, IBM’s Watson, and other theories

  • Better social network + blockchain + AI + human touch

  • Improving content streaming on the blockchain

  • Supply chain transparency

  • Increasing public sector trust of cryptocurrencies

  • Education around blockchain technology

  • Blockchain not mainstream enough


More Great WIRED Stories