Mass Adoption? The Blockchain Answer is NOT in Plain Sight

It’s understandable, crypto was started by cypherpunks looking to spread the good word of cryptocurrency from the grassroots.

If a movement starts by and for the common man, then the common man will look around his environment for who could adopt this new way and help break from the financial institutions, legacy governments rules, and a system built to work against him.

As we walk the streets searching, who do we see first? Street merchants! The first target whom we can convince to adapt the new crypto-transaction way.

However, fragmented end-users, fringe consumers, and mom & pop retailers are not the primary drivers for society’s GDP.

If cryptocurrency and its underlying technology, the blockchain, are to help the average citizen’s wealth formation, protection, and purchasing power, then focus on the other three drivers of any economy, beyond personal consumption, is a must:

1. Business Investment
2. Net Exports
3. Government spending.

My least concern is government spending (they have plenty of fiat for that), so let’s set gov spending to the side for now.

I believe the real answer can capture both 1 & 2 at its core, Raw Materials transactions.

Which includes:

• Traditional “Pay dirt” Miners
• Manufacturers
• Business to Business Supply Chains (transport & logistics)
• Wholesalers

Otherwise, industries that drive governments at every level and truly determine their spending habits and decisions.

An example is Aclyd a new crypto project undergoing their ICO now.

ACLYD’s Mission: Using the power of blockchain to provide the alcohol industry with a frictionless payment processing and smart contracting system which raises accountability, reduces costs, cuts transaction times, and allows for greater distribution of wealth.

Jessica Contreras is the ambitious founder and CEO, who has years of alcohol supply chain experience in her young career.

Jessica states the primary reasons for blockchain in her industry,

“Sales of alcohol have one often unrealized fact, a producer has two customers: the first ones are retailers — liquor stores, restaurants, night clubs, etc — who are the first purchasers of product. These are a fragmented group that uses checks to pay me for product, which takes some times up to 90 days for collections, mail and processing. Crypto can be utilized to reduce this procedure to seconds.”

“Inventory of products is also not tracked because systems are not integrated, thus alcohol wholesalers send out small armies of employees called liquor reps to manage the sales pipeline, which crypto transaction on the blockchain can reduce to a data processing solution.”

Jessica even thinks about the last mile or consumer facing side of the business,

“Lastly, the KYC/AML of a digital wallet can be used to keep underage drinkers from using the token to make alcohol purchases. Your ID was used to form your Coinbase or other account, and that ID can also be used along with non-invasive biometrics to keep alcohol from minors.”

Civic has proven this can work with a phone wallet app: Consensus 2018 Civic and Anheuser-Busch debut crypto beer vending machine

Cisco’s focus on blockchain goes back many years, and at their 2018 Cisco Live U.S. conference they demonstrate how they are helping industrial companies bring IoT, indoor/outdoor data sensors, and blockchain together to streamline business processes.

An example is digitizing the Port of Rotterdam with a showcase of Container 42. This container will circle the world twice and be a self contained unit with hundreds of sensors, including solar panels on the top and powered by Tesla’s battery power-packs.

In partnership with IBM, data collected via Cisco Gateways must be secured on the IBM Cloud. Thus, the perfect use-case for transmitting big data via a secure blockchain.

TradeLens is an IBM program that specifically focuses on more efficiency in supply chains.

Partnering with major players from Maersk to Walmart, data is being collected and updated over a million times per day.

Anoop Naarnra, Director of Blockchain at Cisco, stating in a Cisco Live interview,

"The conversation has changed dramatically from 2016. Two years ago, the questions were along the line of, ‘what is the technology?’ ‘How can I take benefit from it?’ What’s the real value?’
Last year it was, ‘Yes, it kind of works, and we’ve done our pilots and P.O.Cs. But this year, the conversation has now moved to, ‘We want to move to production, we want to figure out how we can realize the value of the technology and actually deliver.’"

I suggest this article from Cryptovest by Anatol Antonovici entitled “Rwanda Implements blockchain Initiative to Track Tantalum”. An example of raw materials tracking via blockchain. Such adoption will drive acceptance at every level of the supply chain.

If mineral miners insist on blockchain tracking, custody and payments from those further up the chain, eventually, companies like Apple will adopt paying and receiving cryptocurrency payment from wholesalers and suppliers. This in turn will make the transition to consumer facing payments seamless.

Because multi-national companies keep an abundance of funds over-seas anyway, storing a cryptocurrency outside its home national boundaries and inside crypto-friendly jurisdictions, is not a large step for corporations to take.

Beyond blood diamonds, every rare metal mining operation is concerned about forgery, theft, black markets, and hacked databases. The blockchain will solidify their trust amongst their business partners and margins can increase with surety of source. From DeBeers to MetLife insurance, every international sector can benefit from blockchain and crypto-payments.

Once the true GDP drivers educate and demonstrate the benefits to government bureaucrats, we may see change.

Once government officials are shown how this free-flow of public information will also help their auditing efforts, ensuring their mandate of protecting the public welfare, with much less time and effort, we just may see stifling governments loosen their restrictions for Business Sake!