Blockchain Academy

Banking is just the beginning. blockchain as as way to expedite back office functions and settlement could cut up to $20B in middleman costs
Cross-border transaction costs can be reduced and the efficiency of cross-border payments can be improved (e.g Ripple) .
Micro and mobile payments solution can be provided globally

Pain points for buying and selling property include a lack of transparency during and after transactions, copious amounts of paperwork, possible fraud, and errors in public records. Blockchain offers a way to reduce the need for paper-based record keeping and speed up transactions — helping stakeholders improve efficiency and reduce transaction costs on all sides of the transaction.
Real estate blockchain applications can help record, track, and transfer land titles, property deeds, liens, and more, and can help ensure that all documents are accurate and verifiable.

The whole basis of blockchain is to create decentralized and ultimately secure ways of storing, verifying, and encrypting data, so naturally, security is going to feel the force of this new technology. Decentralized data storage in the cloud eliminates many of the problems of data hacks we’ve seen major players dealing with over the last few years. Advanced cryptography based on blockchain technologies can create virtually unhackable data encryption.

Many people want to donate to charity organizations, but worry about whether their money will actually reach the intended recipients. Charities can create trust through smart contracts and online reputation management systems that can help donors trust that their money is going to the specified people and places. And the U.N.’s World Food Programme is implementing a blockchain based system that allows refugees to get food with an iris scan, instead of relying on cash, credit, or vouchers, all of which can be stolen.

In agriculture, blockchain promises a single source of truth about the state of your farm, inventory, and contracts. Many farmers today utilize a combination of software, apps, spreadsheets, pen and paper, and memory to record their data. That effort is then multiplied when farm service providers require information and data in order to deliver on the service they were hired to perform. By providing a single source of data for a farm, blockchain minimizes the strain of record-keeping and maintaining multiple record systems. Blockchain can ultimately save time and energy in the agriculture value chain.

Pharma isn’t known for being a fast-moving industry. Despite the sector’s focus on innovation and problem solving, there’s a lot of red tape around clinical testing, FDA approvals, and more.
Using a blockchain ledger can create a more efficient system, opening the door for faster innovation, better regulated production, and smarter medical data security. For instance, research can be published earlier, without scientists worrying about their intellectual property. If a report is published through a blockchain-enabled system, there will be permanent record of its existence, preventing others from claiming it as their own.

Several startups are coming up with ways for musicians to get paid directly from their fans, without giving up large percentages of sales to platforms or record companies. Smart contracts can also be used to automatically solve licensing issues, and better catalog songs with their respective creators. Mycelia and Ujo Music are two startups creating blockchain-based solutions in the music industry.

Video is predicted to form 82% of all Internet traffic by 2021, and blockchain may play a significant role by decentralizing the video infrastructure. Decentralizing video encoding, storage, and content distribution will dramatically reduce the cost of video traffic by tapping into $30 billion in wasted Internet computing services.
Startups like VideoCoin are already making good on the promise of freeing up this capital, which will allow entirely new and innovative ecosystems of video apps to emerge on the market.

Healthcare institutions suffer from an inability to securely share data across platforms. Better data collaboration between providers could ultimately mean higher probability of accurate diagnoses, higher likelihood of effective treatments, and the overall increased ability of healthcare systems to deliver cost-effective care.
Use of blockchain technology could allow hospitals, payers, and other parties in the healthcare value chain to share access to their networks without compromising data security and integrity.

Rigged votes and “voting irregularities” could be a thing of the past, as could the threat of rival governments or terrorist organizations hacking the vote. Voting systems secured with blockchain technology would be completely unhackable. From voter registrations to verifying identity to tallying votes, the system would be indisputable. Gone would be the days of recounts and “hanging chads.”

Aside from voting systems, blockchain technologies could be used to help reduce and eliminate bureaucratic red tape and corruption in government agencies. For example, welfare, disability, veterans and unemployment benefits could be more easily verified and distributed, eliminating fraud and waste. Smart contracts could ensure that government funds are only released when certain conditions are met whether to contractors or foreign governments in the form of aid. And security, efficiency, and transparency in government functions could be increased across the board.

By nature, academic credentials must be universally recognized and verifiable. In both the primary/secondary schooling and university environments, verifying academic credentials remains largely a manual process (heavy on paper documentation and case-by-case checking).
Deploying blockchain solutions in education could streamline verification procedures, thereby reducing fraudulent claims of un-earned educational credits.

Companies like Airbnb, Tujia, Wimdu, and others provide a way for people to temporarily exchange assets — including private homes — for monetary value. The problem is that in the absence of a public record, it has been nearly impossible to insure assets on these platforms.
LenderBot – as an example –  is a micro-insurance proof of concept for the sharing economy that demonstrates the potential for blockchain applications and services in the industry. LenderBot, which allows people to enroll in customized micro-insurance by chatting through Facebook Messenger, enables blockchain to serve as the third-party in the contract between individuals as they exchange high-value items through the sharing economy.

Users who opt in receive fewer, but better targeted ads without the malware and advertisers get better data on theire spending.
Best Example: Brave Browser
Instead of a middleman like Google or Facebook’s ad arm, advertisers will list directly onto Brave’s blockchain-based browser. Users who opt in receive fewer, but better targeted ads without the malware. And advertisers get better data on their spending.

Some of the issues in buying and selling real estate are bureaucracy, lack of transparency, fraud, and mistakes in public records. Using blockchain technology can speed up transactions by reducing the need for paper-based record keeping. It can also help with tracking, verifying ownership, ensuring accuracy of documents, and transferring property deeds. Ubitquity, is a blockchain-secured platform for real estate record-keeping that is an alternative for legacy paper based systems.

The blockchain is set to change the entire approach to research, consulting, analysis and forecasting. Online platforms like Augur are looking to create global decentralized prediction markets. These technologies can be used to place and monitor bets on anything from sports to stocks to elections in a decentralized way.