By Mr Vijay Pravin Maharajan, Founder & CEO, bitsCrunch
“We are changing the world with Technology”. This statement stands evident if we look back to see how our lives have changed with the invention of each technology. Blockchain and Big Data Analytics are equally intelligent innovations that are solving both quantity and quality problems with data.
To put it in layman’s terms, Blockchain Technology is an append-only ledger that aids transaction or information recording on a distributed network. Big Data Analytics is the use of techniques to extract quality data from large, unstructured, and semistructured data sources.
The synergy of these two has made room for a diverse and unimaginable number of applications. You can simply relate to a Cryptocurrency Transaction from user X to user Y, an NFT being sold from user A to user B, and more such transactions on a digital asset or NFT marketplace. These are some live examples of the combined technology use of Blockchain and Big Data Analytics.
Now let’s understand the larger picture. As per a survey by Blockchain.com, approximately, 750 million blockchain transactions have taken place as of July 2022. There are around 360,000 NFT owners on Ethereum. These are mammoth numbers of user data that have to be stored, secured, and formatted for information. Here’s where Blockchain and Big Data Analytics go hand-in-hand.
How can Blockchain help Big Data?
Putting blockchain and big data together can solve countless data-centric problems. Some of them could be:
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Data Accuracy and Integrity
Data harvested from external sources are mostly prone to duplicates. Erroneous data can lead to revenue losses, cyber attacks, and compliance issues. Blockchain and data analytics together can ensure the authenticity of data records in larger volumes like terra and zettabytes.
The application is being practiced by blockchain pioneers like IBM, Coinbase, and Chain analysis to verify documents, and user data and secure them on blockchains.
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Traceability
The transparency of distributed ledger enables data traceability from the source to the destination. For instance, the series of activities on Amazon right from order placement to tracking until delivery, the data can be traced for any order-related discrepancies. Giants like Amazon, Walmart, Microsoft, Oracle, and Huawei have already been using Blockchain for their supply chain management.
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Data Sharing
Data Scientists and Analysts use data that are derived from reports, analyses, and studies. These data are stored on the blockchain and enable access for more number of people at the same time. Further, the data analysis outcomes derived and shared on a Blockchain can be monetized by the Data Scientists.
The Healthcare industry opts for blockchain for this purpose as scams by modification of patients’ medical records can have an adverse effect on the reputation and trust of each brand with their customers.
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Real-time Data Analysis
Blockchain technology provides real-time data analysis with utmost accuracy. In any and every cryptocurrency transaction, a smart contract is involved. The smart contract holds the data of the transferer, recipient, and time stamps of the transaction. This can help in spotting suspicious and fraudulent transactions. Banks can also implement blockchain technology for real-time data analysis and observe significant improvements in decision-making.
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Data Prediction
Blockchain sources structured data from sources like user accounts and devices. These data can help data scientists to predict outcomes related to customers and businesses. Market Research, Business Investments, and Industrial Production can be benefited from the data predicted. The data further helps to study patterns and trends in each industry.
Blockchain Technology is being adopted by 80% of the world’s public companies that are customer and transactional data houses. At different adoption stages like research, pilot, development, and production, companies are setting their footprints with this burgeoning technology. While Paypal and Walt Disney started their penetration into Blockchain in 2014, as of 2022, 27 world companies have fully-functional products built on Blockchain. For features like real-time data analysis, and traceability, blockchain is creating a massive impact when combined with big data analytics and it is here to stay provided the infrastructure is becoming more cost-effective in the near future.