Blockchain is needed wherever speed and reliability of data transfer are important – that is, in almost any area of our lives: in the conclusion of smart contracts for the supply of goods, the verification of electronic voting results, or the operation of any cryptocurrency, such as bitcoin.

Cryptocurrency

Any cryptocurrency works on the blockchain, from bitcoin and etherium to meme coins like Dogecoin. Cryptocurrency is more often used to capitalize on increased volatility, some of the coins can double in value in a week, but visionaries see it as a tool for mass money transfers in their strategic plans. There are already many attempts to introduce, for example, bitcoin into retail – in some places you can even buy a carton of milk in a supermarket or a glass of beer in a bar with it, then there will be the now legendary “bitcoin accepted” sticker at the entrance.

Classic financial giants like PayPal and Square are also expanding their cryptocurrency services. Coinbase, a startup that allows people to buy and sell cryptocurrencies, went public last April and is now valued at $47 billion. Among the world’s biggest banks, the most progressive in terms of blockchain has long been JP Morgan, which back in 2017 developed its Quorum blockchain based on the Ethereum network.

Digital currency

Some nations are launching pilot projects to create digital currencies that run on blockchain. The most successful so far has been China, where tens of thousands of people have been credited with a digital yuan that can be used to pay at retail outlets and make transfers. If this experiment is successful, the digital yuan will appear in the country’s major economic hubs, such as Shanghai.

Smart contracts

With smart contracts, blockchain can track the entire supply chain and verify the authenticity of, for example, a coffee bean – where and by whom it was grown, how and when it was delivered to the supermarket counter. This helps to completely eliminate the fact that the bean has been tampered with, recognize its freshness, and even verify that its production is in line with your ethical and moral values.

NFT

One of the most popular cryptoassets of 2021 were NFTs (non-replaceable tokens) in the form of digital art that could be purchased on marketplaces like OpenSea, Rarible, and others. Simply put, an NFT is a certificate that confirms your rights to digital art: photos, paintings, music, and even gifs. Trading volumes of such NFTs have grown to billions of US dollars, according to various forecasts, the NFT sector will reach about 20% of the entire crypto industry capitalization by 2025.

Gaming industry

Another area of blockchain that is taking over the world is GameFi, the classic online games on your phone or computer that record everything that happens in the game in transactions on the blockchain and establish a new play-to-earn economy. One prime example is the Vietnamese-Philippine game Axie Infinity, where you have to train fictional monsters and do battle with them, earning real money. Such mechanics of the game gave ordinary residents of Vietnam and the Philippines the opportunity to earn unprecedented money, up to $1000 per month, and organize their lives.

Among the companies engaged in the full-fledged implementation of cryptoeconomics and in-game NFT in games, we can distinguish such as Enjin and Attarius Network. These companies aim to conduct a kind of accelerator program for game developers, providing them with everything they need – funding in the form of grants and direct investments, technical and marketing consulting, development and implementation of cryptoeconomics in games, connection to the leading graphics engines Unity and Unreal engine, on which the largest game companies have already created dozens of masterpieces.