Not only did COVID-19 stifle the flow of commodities and people, but it also stifled the progress of blockchain technology.
Aside from a decline in blockchain funding and project delays, the epidemic forced significant blockchain and cryptocurrency gatherings to be postponed, if not canceled. These events aid in the education and promotion of blockchain technology.
When the pandemic fades, though, this "temporary pause" should pass, and blockchain investments should rebound. Blockchain might aid with government contract procurement activities of crucial medical supplies, secure elections, voting processes, and cross-border financial transactions as supply chains, enterprises, and governments seek to combat the pandemic and jumpstart economies.
Concerned about the pandemic, researchers of blockchain technology are working on solutions to manage drug and medical supply chains to prevent counterfeit masks, contributions, and medical insurance claims.
No one is spared from the effects of time and technology.
While specific industries have been ultimately affected or slowed down due to office closures and cash flow constraints for prospective blockchain technology users, blockchain technology continues to advance at breakneck speed. By 2022, blockchain will have outpaced other industries in terms of financial sector growth. An extensive regulatory effort is required for food monitoring, commodities verification, and sensitive data storage to link real-world things to tokenized analogs.
Because more people stay at home during the outbreak, the use of blockchain as a digital currency in online games is skyrocketing - great news for NFT fans! The use of blockchain's underlying technology to sovereign currencies will be another key milestone in this area. The Federal Reserve in the United States is investigating the prospect of a central bank digital currency serving as the basis for the design, secure real-time payments and settlements system. Two countries that are intrigued by this possibility are China and Sweden. There is still no legal structure or restrictions in place. There will also be greater integration among blockchain developers because many firms were not financially equipped for the coronavirus outbreak.
Despite the widespread impact, two industries responded better to blockchain.
1. Finance and banking
Because of the unexpected nature of recent times, the current monetary system is unstable. With the impacts of COVID-19 being felt on the global financial system, blockchain-based banking and finance solutions are becoming increasingly popular, even at the national level.
The effectiveness of cryptocurrency has made a significant contribution to the proposed advancements. In recent years, cryptocurrency has gone mainstream, with forecasts indicating even wider adoption. This trend has shaken the business & financial world, eliciting a variety of reactions from industry experts.
Products for Investment
The trend of delivering bitcoin investment vehicles through traditional commercial banking institutions is one of these reactions. These products now allow investors to buy potential volumes of cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin, at today's pricing, thereby allowing them to bet on the future value of cryptocurrency to increase their returns. Large financial firms, like Goldman Sachs, are, nonetheless, continually investing in Bitcoin's future.
In the aftermath of COVID-19, investments like this demonstrate the potential of financial technology (fintech). Fintech is seen as a method to grow products and services by 63% of banking professionals, according to Maryville University. Blockchain's ability to give a decentralized security mechanism via cryptographic linkages makes it a useful financial solution in the modern world as people want security and reliability while working from home. Latest products and services will be geared at investors and consumers based on blockchain's security.
Possibility of Universal Currency Comes Closer
With a lengthy number of countries losing currency value against the US dollar, a more ubiquitous version of currency, such as those supplied by blockchain technology, can become all the craze in the aftermath of COVID. This move has the potential to completely revolutionize banking and finance globally, leading to far more extensive adoption of this technology.
2. Medical care
The healthcare industry is coping with a number of problems that have been compounded by COVID-19's consequences. The possibility of data breaches, along with inadequate record access, makes healthcare treatment and study into important health issues expensive and difficult. Blockchain technology can benefit the entire system, and its use is growing throughout the industry.
With good reason, the healthcare blockchain business is predicted to be valued at $1.6 billion by 2025, establishing it as one of the fastest-growing sectors in blockchain. Blockchain technology has the potential to assist in the resolution of healthcare issues by providing security and accessibility that the existing system lacks.
Blockchain Data Protection & Safety
In the healthcare industry, the average cost of a data breach is $7.91 million, putting it as the most costly per capita of any industry. These expenses are incurred as a result of ransomware and cybercrime criminals stealing medical data for black market sales. The healthcare industry is particularly vulnerable to these attacks due to the high value of medical data and the inadequacy of private healthcare networks in dealing with them.
Blockchain integration, on the other hand, may be able to help with this problem. Blockchain data solutions enable immutability and transparency in use by providing break-in-proof databases that can be secured to an authorized user via cryptographic linkages. Access data can be collected and future attacks avoided in the event of a break-in.
Data Availability
Patients may greatly benefit from the decentralized character of prospective healthcare blockchains in terms of user ownership and accessibility. This will allow them to share data amongst healthcare practitioners while also giving them more access to data banks of de-identified data points that can help diagnose and treat medical problems.
In a pandemic world, these solutions are required, as telemedicine and a better knowledge of how diseases transmit and are treated are critical for public health. The healthcare business can benefit from blockchain's security and accessibility, cutting costs and increasing health outcomes.
Lianfei Technology has built the world's first blockchain epidemic monitoring technology, which can follow COVID-19's progress in real-time across all provinces and log relevant epidemic data on the blockchain, allowing data to be tracked and not manipulated.
Closing Thoughts
Disruptive technology has enabled diverse methods to the COVID-19 epidemic in emerging economies, regardless of social status. Among the technologies adopted are online health care, blockchain-based epidemic monitoring platforms, robots that deliver food and medications and monitor people's temperatures, online education platforms, and home-based working solutions, robotics and 3D-printing technologies to manage social distancing in manufacturing plants, and robotics and 3D-printing technologies to handle social distancing in manufacturing plants.
More willingness to adapt to disruptive technology is a positive indicator for the blockchain business, indicating that mainstream adoption will be more seamless in the future.