Recently, blockchain has managed to gain immense popularity among everyone. Be it the controversies or the boons, somehow blockchain always manages to make the headlines on a regular basis. Despite having some issues which needs to be resolved, it also has several benefits like transparency, smart contracts and much more. Herein, we’ll be going to discuss one of its boon or more specifically Smart Contracts. I’ll try to cover the different ways by which Smart Contract can make our life easy, simple and better.
Before jumping directly to its potentials, let’s first understand the Smart Contracts in the most simplest ways. Basically, these are self-executing contracts between buyer and seller. Unlike regular contracts written on papers, these are written into the lines of codes. It eliminates the need for 3rd parties such as a central authority, legal system or any external enforcement mechanism for carrying out any transactions or agreements. Smart Contracts are tamper-resistant, self-verifying, self-executing, fast, cheap and transparent. Going by its applications, it has a potential to improve almost every industry but the top ones include insurance, supply chain management, real estate, banking, legal industries, employment, education, logistics, copyright infringements and several others.
Instead of mentioning all, I have picked the top 5 industries where Smart Contracts can be of greater good making our life much easier.
Insurance
It is one of the biggest sectors where smart contracts can make everyone’s life much more easier. The smart contract has the potential to simplify the whole process by automatically triggering a claim in case of certain events. The major problem with almost all the insurance companies is that the claim process is a long, tedious and confusing. Because of the lack of automation, it often takes months to pay to the customers.
Now, imagine a situation where in certain cases, smart contracts could automatically trigger the claim for the customers. For instance, take a car you are driving which is equipped with IoT device can report all the details such as location, speed, time of the crash and so on. In this case, if all the conditions are met and covered by your insurance then the data in blockchain will prove you right and you’ll receive your payment automatically without any hassle. Other similar events related to the natural disaster, stolen devices and others can also be recorded.
Supply Chain Management
It is another field where smart contracts can create a major impact. Basically, supply chain management is the flow of goods from the raw state to the finished products involving various processes. The whole process may involve the movement of product from one places to another and in some cases from one country to another. Tracking these packages all around the world becomes a strenuous task as it has to be verified, checked and passed at every stage. Assume if an item gets delayed or lost then it takes a lot of time to find the reason for the same. Similarly, in cases of contaminated edible goods, we have to cancel the whole shipment instead of isolating the contaminated products.
To tackle these issues- smart contracts can be implemented. It can not only simplify the process but also makes tracking much easier. Imagine an automated process where all the details of the product like its arrival date, quality and other assessment are added in the blockchain network. Now if any items get lost or delayed, we can easily know its current location and the reason for the same. In cases of edible goods, instead of rejecting the whole shipment we can track and isolate the contaminated products. Apart from these, smart contracts also bring transparency to customers. As with this concept, customers can even track the freshness or purity or source of any product as every record will be present.
Real Estate
In real estate, each deal requires the presence of different third parties, negotiations, several paper works, agreements and others, making it a painful procedure. Apart from making it a long process, these formalities also increases the actual cost.
Now envision this picture, you are seeking to buy or rent a property and instead of going to the broker, lawyers or any other third parties, you directly contact the owner of the property for a further process. Yes, a smart contract makes it possible! Here, it acts as a self-executing contract between the buyer and seller eliminating the need of any third party. If the seller meets all the demand listed by the owner in the contract, then automatically the amount will be transferred from buyer to the seller account and in return, the buyer will get the possession of the property.
It bypasses the requirement of realtors, lawyers and other professionals helping everyone to save both money and time. Smart contracts let you buy or sell any property with just a few clicks without even meeting the other parties.
Employment Contracts
By using Smart Contract, both Employers and Employee would know exactly what was expected. It brings transparency, fairness and agreement between both the parties. It has great potential to improve the relationship between them. Employers will be automatically updated about the employee’s work and they can grant them the increase or compensation accordingly. Additionally, wages can also be paid through the contract and these contracts can be updated in case of promotions or due to change in work responsibilities. These changes can be tracked by both employers and employee without any alterations or changes.
Furthermore, this contract can also regulate the use of temporary labor involving an employer, an agency and a worker. In this case, the worker first joins the agency and then, the employer hires them. Most of the times, this lacks transparency as agencies can alter the contract term’s without the knowledge of the worker. These may include altering the contact duration, changing the wages or any other rights. It becomes difficult for the authorities to track it but it is not possible with smart contracts. As while using these contracts, nothing could be altered and if any information is changed by anyone then everyone notices it.
Copyright and Authorship
Today, the entertainment industry is facing all-time high cases of piracy and authorship violations. Everyone, be it a producer, musician, writer, photographer or any other artists are deprived of the royalties because of the exploitation of their work.
Smart Contract can make the whole industry more transparent and reliable. It has the potential to credit the owner their royalties every time when anyone downloads or view a song, novel, movie, photos or others. Additionally, it also keeps the rights of each work secure without the chance of any hampering or alterations.
So, this was my top 5 areas where smart contracts would be really beneficial in making our lives a lot easier. However, apart from these, other areas like in Academics to record all the achievements of any student along with all the mark sheets and degrees, in Gambling for automatic payment, for digital identity to avoid any frauds, in the tax system to maintain the records, in health care for maintaining medical records, and in several other areas these smart contracts can be useful.
In spite of having all these benefits, we are still way behind to correctly and efficiently implementing these contracts. Today, many out there don’t even know what smart contract really is?
In order to understand and create Smart Contracts by using Blockchain technology, you can explore the online tutorial Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies which is designed for Beginners.
