Many stakeholders are involved in a typical supply chain, trusting each other to perform their duties. One party may ship goods, another will process payments, and another entity may be responsible for warehousing. In addition, if you are into ETH investment, you must also know about the ETH and Healthcare Industry.
Smart contracts can automate many of these tasks through Ethereum’s blockchain using code that executes autonomously on the network-like software that eliminates intermediaries to save time, eliminate fees and make trust machine-driven.
It will result in greater efficiency and lower costs compared to traditional methods. For example, a financial institution can provide loans faster because intelligent contracts don’t require human evaluation, saving processing time. While this is all very exciting, the real economic value will come from emerging use cases for traditional industries like travel and hospitality.
For travelers, we can imagine future uses for smart contracts in the form of e-tickets where multiple parties share all these aspects of a trip. For example, a business person may purchase a ticket from their airline, and an insurance company may protect lost or damaged luggage.
However, the ticket provided by the airline may not be valid, or they need more inventory to cover all needs to travel simultaneously. A smart contract could take this information and share it with other parties who can handle it appropriately. For example, the airline could refund the traveler if they cannot accommodate them and handle travel rescheduling.
Real-life application of smart contracts:
An example can be seen on a large scale with smart contracts enabling homeowners to share ownership of their homes. For example, a homeowner may share their property by dividing it into segments and offering each segment up for rent on a short-term basis. Because this is all done with smart contracts, the renter would pay for rent automatically when they stay at the property, and the homeowner would be able to offer each room as desired.
Smart contracts also have great potential in air travel, where blockchain technology can automate itinerary changes and edits, which may cost travelers time and money today. So let’s discuss the industries that intelligent contracts can disrupt.
- Music industry:
The music industry has been struggling with piracy for years, and the advent of torrents and sites like YouTube have made it all the more difficult. Ethereum has been touted as a possible solution to this problem. However, there is a better solution.
Blockchain technology can create an environment where artists can sell their music directly to consumers on their terms with secure payment methods that cannot be stolen or violated. In addition, smart contracts could be developed that would allow access to content by other digital distributors at the same time while preventing third-party interference or theft. For example, digital distributors could efficiently distribute music without the artist being able to exchange information about them or control how they are accessed.
- Retail industry:
With the integration of blockchain technology and smart contracts, retailers can provide an improved shopping experience for consumers. So it is because many new solutions for retail transactions today rely on third parties that handle the entire process from order to fulfillment to payment. However, because smart contracts can execute autonomously, retailers can lower costs and increase efficiency by reducing their reliance on these third-party entities.
For example, a store owner can use a smart contract to take customer data and send push notifications with options for discounts or promotional deals based on the customer’s purchasing history.
- Education Industry:
One of the main arguments against online education systems today is the lack of trust in online programs. It is because many third-party entities touch a student’s information, from education program administrators to payment processors. However, smart contracts and Ethereum can change this because payments through the blockchain are more secure and less prone to error. Students can log into their accounts and access their grades instantly instead of waiting for checks or other forms of payment.
- Healthcare Industry:
Healthcare information is one of the most sensitive data types today; however, it faces many security and privacy issues daily due to data breaches and improper use of these records, which can lead to identity theft and fraud. Smart contracts could help through an application where patients have complete control over medical data stored on the blockchain.
Blockchain technology has the potential to completely transform how secure healthcare data is stored, shared, and accessed. Currently, most parties involved in healthcare relate through a trusted third party, making it difficult to share information. It also increases costs since each party needs to pay for their services, legal fees, insurance policies, certifications, etc. People with smart contracts in healthcare may reduce these costs.
- Government:
Several government agencies are already considering the adoption of blockchain technology for several services, including simplified tax collection and increased transparency in the management of public funds. However, one of the biggest impediments to this adoption has been the need for a standard all parties can agree upon and implement.
Smart contracts are currently not recognized as legal contracts in most nations. Still, a task force at the United Nations is working on this issue because intelligent contracts must be legally binding globally. In addition, smart contracts may also become necessary for many government programs that provide subsidies and payments to citizens, which typically require administrative overhead for payments and documentation.
