The future of blockchain and market disruptors

Currently, when someone buys a ticket to a popular Broadway show or rock concert, the stakeholders—artists, promoters, and venues—get paid when the original ticket is sold. Let’s say it cost $200. If the buyer then turns around and resells that same ticket on the secondary market for $500, the buyer-turned-reseller pockets a $300 profit while these stakeholders don’t see any additional funds.

Maybe not for long. Using blockchain technology, entrepreneurs are disrupting how online transactions are processed. Tokens and smart contracts will ensure that content creators are properly paid for their work, no matter how many times it is resold or reused.

A smart contract can identify the contractual parties, along with any third parties that may have rights to a transaction involving services or intellectual property, like a song or movie. And a digital asset-focused protocol, such as the decentralized, open-source Tari, enables issuers to program rules into to the management, use, and transfer of such assets. Blockchain’s immutability means that these coded rules are enforced in every transaction throughout the asset’s lifecycle.

To demonstrate Tari’s capabilities, its backers are contributing to the development of Big Neon, an open source mobile ticketing app that aims to revolutionize the ticketing resale market for concerts and sporting events.

When it comes to online advertising, a company called Brave is pioneering the use of blockchain-based validation protocols to authenticate and compensate real humans who engage with online advertisements, as opposed to bots that are pretending to be viewers.

Why is this important? Because today, online advertisers rely on data provided by individual site publishers to determine the success of their advertisements. This data is used to determine how much to pay publishers for the online exposure. The current model is error prone and unreliable, given that much of the data provided to publishers is fraudulent. The use of bots to view ads instead of real people is a significant business problem.

Using its blockchain-based technology, Brave can greatly reduce this problem by creating a “smart” advertising contract, validating the data, and helping ensure the advertiser is paying the proper amount for the ad’s actual viewership. For example, a person who clicks on a Black Friday ad for furniture may provide the advertiser with some information on her history, like a snapshot of where she has been online and what other items interested her. At the same time, by clicking on the ad, the viewer may receive a “Basic Attention Token” for her time and attention that can be used as currency.

As an added benefit, by following the token though the databases where it later appears, the issuing agent can develop a better understanding of how it is being used and determine potential new sectors in which to advertise.

Digital identity solutions provide people with confidence about who they are interacting with online. Civic is a digital identity company that helps businesses and individuals control and protect personal information with blockchain-based identity verification solutions.

In 2018, Civic partnered with Anheuser-Busch InBev to create the world’s first crypto beer vending machine showcasing anonymous age verification technology. Anyone can download the Civic App and have their identity verified through Civic. With that verified credential, the app user can scan a Civic QR code on the beer vending machine to verify the app user is over 21, without sharing additional information, like age or identity.

Civic’s solutions are designed to empower companies and their customers in understanding how and where their identity information is shared. Instead of sending Social Security numbers, private records, and other personally identifiable information (PII) to multiple parties (e.g., credit card companies, banks, health plans), Civic users can store their PII in a single, highly secure account, authenticate their identity a single time through trusted validators, and instantly provide authenticated data to requesting parties.

Companies like Rivetz Corp. are applying immutable verification to software that powers devices, providing cybersecurity in the creation of smartphone apps, securing authentication necessary for mobile transactions. Device integrity will become increasingly important as forms of ID, payment, insurance, and loyalty programs all become digitized.

Rivetz believes the smartphone will become the biggest holder of private keys in the new blockchain economy, and in that ecosystem this “end device” is potentially a weak link. Networks powered by blockchain technology like Rivetz’s, will validate “known devices” and the Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements needed for safe transactions.