Hybrid Use Cases Drive Crypto, Blockchain Adoption at Every Level

We often focus on the currency part of cryptocurrency, its market volatility, and digital asset regulation. But, we shouldn’t lose sight of how quickly blockchain technology is being adopted by business and industry.

Businesses are constantly finding new and innovative uses, driving forward enterprise blockchain adoption in ways that weren’t even conceived a few years ago.

Daniela Barbosa, general manager of blockchain and identity and Hyperledger executive director at The Linux Foundation, tells TechCrunch the biggest demand over the past two years has been “hybrid use cases,” where businesses use layer 1 blockchains and permissioned distributed networks to meet existing and emerging business demands.

Hyperledger is an open source platform, derived from The Linux Foundation, that aims to help traditional industries like finance to use and deploy blockchain technology. It works with almost 150 organizations including crypto-native firms, traditional financial institutions, technology companies and retail businesses. Some of the foundation’s members include JP Morgan, IBM, American Express, CVS Health, Cisco, Visa, ConsenSys, Walmart and T-Mobile.

Businesses find the technology valuable “because they’re building networks, sometimes with competitors or peers, and using a distributed ledger helps facilitate business processes they have,” Barbosa noted.

Businesses can perform instant settlements and transact with privacy by showing third parties that a transaction occurred while omitting the internal details. “Distributed ledgers allow companies and competitors to work together in a trusted environment and still have that privacy element as well,” Barbosa added.

And the technology doesn’t just help big companies, but smaller businesses, too, Barbosa noted. Supply chains using blockchain technology can benefit anyone from farmers to major businesses, she added.