In my previous blog post, I stated four (4) areas that blockchain technology will disrupt, which are:
• E-commerce
• Cyber-security & data privacy
• Banking & investment
• New & unique business models
In this post we will focus on e-commerce and examine some of the ways that blockchain technology will disrupt this $2.3 trillion dollar industry. Today’s e-commerce landscape is dominated by the likes of Amazon, Apple, Walmart or China’s Alibaba and JD.com. Today’s retail e-commerce ecosystem presents the one of the biggest opportunities for blockchain technology to disrupt.
Retail e-commerce sales worldwide from 2014 to 2021 (in billion U.S. dollars)
Minimize Privacy Risk
Cryptocurrency and their underlying blockchain technology provide the benefits of cash but over the internet. Consider this: every time you use your credit card, you are handing over personal information that could become a source of identity theft later. Using cryptocurrency, like cash helps you to avoid this unfortunate possibility by making a straight forward transaction without given up any unnecessary personal information.
This is the advantage of hard physical cash, which in many ways can be considered the first Proof system. For example when you go to the store to purchase goods or services with cash it is a frictionless transaction because you as the consumer instantly prove that you have an agreed upon medium of exchange. In fact, just like fiat money, cryptocurrency functions as a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value. Imagine if you can make purchases without the risk of the trusted 3rd party selling your personal information. Or worse, malicious hackers steals data from trusted 3rd parties (Read about recent major data breaches).
No Login
As mentioned above, one of the biggest vulnerabilities with existing 3rd party business models is that users must provide their personal information with the trusted party (so that trusted party can authenticate and verify user transactions), leaving customers at risk to malicious hackers. The trusted 3rd party looks to protect user information by creating logins that offers a layer of security to allow access to the user’s online account. Ironically this exposes the user to additional risk.
Time Efficiency
The process of creating login accounts can be time consuming. Furthermore, logins do not solve the problem of protection because centralized systems are susceptible to cyber-attacks. With cryptocurrency, the customer’s identity is protected and the merchant can trust that they will receive payment almost instantaneously (on Steem, confirmation is under 1 minute).
Low to No Transaction Fees
A huge advantage of cryptocurrency and the blockchain is that the technology is designed to have low to no transaction cost. As a case in point, one of the major advantages of Steem over other blockchain platforms is that there is zero transaction cost! This point cannot be overstated and gives Steem a powerful advantage over other blockchain networks. But that is a topic for another post...
In conclusion e-commerce presents a real opportunity for blockchain technology to reach mainstream adoption. However there remains huge challenges before blockchain technology moves from a weird and speculative asset to a tangible utility. Although, Bitcoin and Ether are the two dominant cryptocurrencies, it is not uncommon for their prices to fluctuate 20%-40% on a given day. In order for cryptocurrency and the underlying blockchain technology to attain mass adoption, it can not expose businesses and consumers alike to such currency risk. As a business owner you cannot pay a person’s salary in Bitcoin if the purchasing power of their wages keeps fluctuating. A solution which is being proposed is the idea of a “stablecoin” which is a cryptocurrency that is pegged to a fiat currency such as the US dollar. There are projects which are currently in progress that take aim to address this problem. However, none of the existing stablecoins have proven to be reliable. In fact, many are considered scams. However as cryptocurrency and the blockchain becomes a more mature technology and gains adoption, coin price stability issues will be solved and unleash a second e-commerce revolution.
Make sure to leave your comments and share your thoughts.
I believe blockchain will disrupt the above listed industries and then some. The people standing in its way are the traditionalist who believe they have a lot to lose,if blockchain tech is adopted in these industries. So they try to destabilize by cooking up a storm to drown it out but just like time they can't stop it or change it. About the stable coin use a mode of payment ,sbd is pegged to the dollar .It would be great if SBD takes up the role it would further strengthen its position in the cryptocurrency market ranking if it is adopted.
Im preety sure it's just a matter of time and it's not if but when.Blockchain is better on every level.Three main pros are safety,efficiency and fees.We will surely need some time but there is no way that blockchain wont go to mainstream.Even the media and banks with their propaganda bullshit can't win in long term.As long as there are no quantum PCs we can consider ourselfes save.Nice that you are persuade to discussion.Keep up the great work🤗
in talking to your last 2 points, i think those are 2 things that make STEEM in particular extremely unique vs their peers (with the exception of EOS, which of course was forked, in the open source software sense, from STEEM basically)
then there's the need for a stablecoin... which silicon valley is pouring money into at the moment... all the more reason for SBD to trade like its actually USD... think of the security and tax implications too... security: you could trade directly from your account, no need for 3rd party exchange and then the tax implications could be huge... no need to go steem to crypto to fiat, just park it in SBD if you want to do risk off trade
PREACH!!!!
A great statement!!! Zero transaction cost with Steem!!
Also thank you for voting on my reply to Marketstack!
It really is helping me.
This is a good idea and something worthy to talk about on this platform.
I believe it because these are mediums of exchange which start and no one thinks they can take root at some time but the fact is these later stand out as serious competitors in the market system and we have seen this with the Bitcoin cryptocurrency and has impact on the global market. With Blochain tech incorporated in the business sector, it is clear that i will simplify the way of money transfer and actually become digital as we are seeing the current world in the financial area of handling money.
Hi, what youve talked about are financial reasons for using bitcoin or crypto over credit cards. Not sure how that disrupts amazon's ecommerce business or monopoly? If blockchain can create a platform where i can buy things for less, that is an ecommerce disruptor.
Cyber attacks on retialers doubled! Consumers are shopping online now more than ever. We expect our data to be safe, but in reality it's not as safe as we think it is. E-commerce is just another example of how blockchain can make our data stored safely. At Blockbasis, where users can send and receive crypto using only an email, our decentralized exchange (DEX) also runs on a blockchain, in particular Bitshares' Graphene blockchain. Meaning there is no risk for personal data to be compromised or cryptocurrency to be stolen.
great post. it really helps.
Please Stop
In your your last 100 comments you used 34 phrases considered to be spam and you made this exact same comment 1 times. You've received 0 flags and you may see more on comments like these. These comments are the reason why your Steem Sincerity API classification scores are Spam: 69.40% and Bot: 3.30%
Please stop making comments like this and read the ways to avoid @pleasestop and earn the support of the community.
good post in my opinion what stops these companies to make their own currencies
@transparencybot what is this about?????