Blockchain. A word that has been frightening and that now, thanks to disclosure, can instead collect all its nobility within organizations.
85% of managers today believe that the blockchain can help companies develop. One Italian in five has heard of it and among those who know it, 53% consider it important for themselves and for their lives, 68% for the development of Italy.
These data emerge from an Ipsos research and were presented at an event organized in April entitled Blockchain Business Revolution.
So far so good, but what is – called in simple words – the blockchain?
Let’s take an example: your childhood friend sends you a message asking you to lend him money.
You, even if reluctantly, accept and answer that you will make a transfer.
This transfer takes place through an intermediary party, which is the bank, which manages your funds.
A physical transfer of banknotes is not necessary: the transaction is recorded in a register. Which neither you nor your friend check.
It means that we trust the bank, we consider it trustworthy and not susceptible to internal or external corruption.
But:
A hacker attacks your bank’s servers and database, or the branch manager is ill-intentioned and takes over your funds, or the bank goes bankrupt.
At this point a need arises: complete transactions without third parties guaranteeing them.
The answer to this need is the blockchain.
A method to autonomously store data in a register without another doing it for us.
A distributed and decentralized register. The blockchain in fact boasts of a condition of efficiency: the existence of a number of miners (they are the subjects) such as to be able to keep the register.
And each of these miners has the same register, not a copy, just the original, which is updated instantly as soon as someone adds a transaction that will have to be validated by the miners.
Once validated it will be indelible, it will no longer be possible to modify it and above all it will be recorded and visible to all. With a surge in transparency and inability to change data once registered.
We will stop here, for the moment, without entering into the technical modalities of register management in the Blockchain world, but we would like to point out some startups that present projects already implemented:
Net Service, an Emilian company, carries out projects on the blockchain, in the supply chain (distribution chain management) with specific focus on packaging issues.
Flosslab, a spinoff of the University of Cagliari, develops a utility for water control and management, certifying consumption and preventing fraud, then working on document management, with the certification on blockchain of degree diplomas and e-voting ( www. fl osslab.com).
Trakti facilitates the creation, execution and management of online negotiations. His blockchain projects concern logistics and maintenance management, for high technology systems used by the Air Force. The data collected with augmented reality and hybrid solutions, thanks to the blockchain become inviolable and cannot be modified (www.trakti.com).
Certi fi ed Origins is a company born of agricultural cooperatives and oil mills in Tuscany. In collaboration with Oracle, it uses the blockchain to certify the oil supply chain and product traceability, also as a function of exports to the USA (www.certi fi edorigins.com).
Cargo Smart deals with smart contracts between various countries and document management in the world of large international transport, with the blockchain (www.cargosmart.com).
