What tools are spreading the usage of the blockchain?

Perhaps no other development is as well known for its “disruptive” nature than the blockchain, the digital, decentralized ledger behind bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies that has held the spotlight over the past year. Banks all around the world are exploring the blockchain’s capabilities. It may significantly reduce overhead costs in the financial sector.

Some of the latest technologies which use the blockchain and increases its applications by developers were presented at FinDEVr, the FinTech for developers conference held in New York City at the end of this March. This was the first time that New York City was added to the FinDEVr roster after a long history of the conference being held in San Francisco in the fall. Especially considering the diminishing line dividing technology and Wall Street, it’s about time that the conference headed East…

Symbiont, the only company presenting blockchain technology from New York City, attempted to bridge the gap between technology and Wall Street even further with “Smart Securities,” its smart contracts platform. Smart Securities facilitates the issuance, trading and processing of less liquid financial instruments such as corporate bonds, syndicated loans and structured products by reducing overhead costs and inefficient processes. The Company validated its technology in August 2015 with the first production use of smart contracts to issue shares on the Bitcoin blockchain. This was the same year that the company was founded.

Certain companies facilitated developers’ usage of blockchain while others utilized it more directly to facilitate banking processes. For instance, Stratumn’s (France) open standard Chainscript innovation, helps developers build workflows protected by the blockchain in order to deploy and run blockchain apps. Another company, Smart Token Chain, incorporates the blockchain along with Smart Contracts and Tokenization into its “Smart Tokens.” Each Smart Token includes enhanced counterpart identity, transaction, and invoice data to instantly transfer assets between P2P, B2C and B2B apps a “Global Asset Interchange.”

Of all blockchain presentations DigiByte Holdings, a “scalable blockchain ecosystem” is of particular note due to its popular application and unique gaming platform. DigiByte is the third most traded cryptocurrency in the world, currently capable of 280 transactions per second (tps). It is expected to scale to 2000+ tps by 2021. The company uses their gaming platform to target millennials for customer acquisition. In discussions after the presentation President, Jared Tate elaborated on the growing popularity of eSports. Apparently by 2021 the industry “will be larger than the NFL.”

The blockchain companies discussed above only scratch the surface of the technologies presented at March’s conference. In approximately a month the same organization that puts on FinDEVr will hold its Finovate Spring conference in San Jose. Get ready for more…