We have long known the power that blockchain technology offered the world in many different applications and industries. With online voting still needing a bit of a push in the securities realm to make large players more comfortable with the technology this article takes a look at some of the other industries that are seeing immediate dramatic improvements across the board by utilizing blockchain technology in securities applications and a couple others that you may not have thought of!

While Bitcoin has received the lion’s share of attention since its conception, recently the Blockchain — the distributed public database used to record Bitcoin transactions — has just begun entering the spotlight for enabling some important capabilities outside of Bitcoin.

“It’s my belief that Blockchain technology will be as important to the world as Gutenburg’s printing press,” Nic Cary, cofounder of Blockchain.info, told me recently. “For the first time in the history of the world we can reimagine how the world transacts without relying on an intermediary.”

One way the Blockchain might change the world is through Distributed Cloud Storage.

Distributed Cloud Storage

The Blockchain has already been manipulated to store information in unscaleable ways. A niche storage trick is sending small amounts of Bitcoin to addresses that represent information when converted into a Unicode format. For example, the above image of Nelson Mandela is recorded in this transaction.

Besides being a hobby for techies, Blockchain data storage could be disruptive. Current cloud storage services are centralized — thus users must place trust in a single storage provider. With the Blockchain, this can become decentralized. For instance, Storj is beta-testing cloud storage using a Blockchain-powered network to improve security and decrease dependency. Additionally users can rent out their excess storage capacity, Airbnb-style, creating new marketplaces.

Read More Here: venturebeat.com