Top 8 Blockchain Applications for Documents You Need to Know

Salomon Kisters

Feb 8, 2021

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At its very core, blockchain technology is merely a data structure and this phenomenon allows it to be used by any business, not just cryptocurrencies. Moreover, since it solves the underlying problem of transparency, privacy, and data integrity, blockchain happens to be the perfect data structure for storing and sharing documents.

Let’s now explore some of the blockchain applications that are used by hundreds of people for storing, securing, and sharing their documents.

Cipher

This middleware is created by one of the most credible blockchain development companies, called Avanza Innovations, and therefore, it enjoys prime credibility. The purpose of this application is to support a rich portfolio of applications that are used by regulators and different governments. Apart from many portfolio items it handles, one of the crucial ones happens to be the exchange of documents on the network. Please note that since blockchain runs on a P2P architecture, it further ensures that documents of sensitive nature (since they are used by governments, regulators, and banks) are only received and seen by the authorized users and this makes a big difference in curbing fraud and privacy breaches. Read more about Cipher.

Although this is a megaproject that supports documents as one of its 4 modules only, the sensitivity of the data it handles makes it one of the top ones on our list.

According to one of the managers who is using the app in the UAE region, it allowed their organization to reduce the 40-day worth of workload to seconds and the entire credit goes to the instant settlement nature of the blockchain technology.

OriginStamp

It happens to be an Intellectual Property protection tool that runs in the cloud (i.e., you do not have to download anything on your computer). Since there is a lot of mistrust on the internet and whenever a reader goes through a document, he cannot be sure whether it’s from the original writer or whether it has been tampered with, this tool provides a robust solution for that.

The best perk is the user-friendliness as even the newbies can use it very easily. You just have to log in and drag/upload the file that you want to timestamp. For ease, you can even upload the files in bulk with a single click.

Apart from the documents, it allows the users to upload any file on the cloud and get it timestamped so the entire community knows about the owner and date of generation.

Read more about how to get started here.

BurstIQ

The data and information shared between doctors and their patients is quite confidential and must be protected. Currently, the systems we have are quite outdated and the data can either be lost or it can be compromised since necessary security protocols are not put around the infrastructure.

However, BurstIQ solves the problem in an ingenious way by introducing blockchain technology. With the help of smart contracts, patients and doctors can upload the required documents and share it with authorized viewers without any hassle.

Moreover, even if the patients change their doctors or hospitals in the future, problems arising due to incompatibility of systems can be avoided as the blockchain technology is platform-independent. So, the records can easily be retrieved without any lag or worrying about the files getting corrupt.

KYC-Chain

Almost every FinTech company in Europe and North America is looking to embed Know Your Customer into their processes for complying with the International money laundering laws. Since verifying an individual is a very crucial task and involves a rigorous background check on the basis of submitted documents/data, the process consumes a lot of time. Moreover, in many cases, fraudulent elements submit forged documents that can wreck the efficiency of the process.

Therefore, this tool allows organizations to upload the documents submitted by their potential clients and whether the client is an individual or an institution, the background checks can be conducted against a comprehensive watchlist that is populated with rich data from over 240 countries. Thus, it does not only minimize the probability of errors but also allows the organizations to remove a major workload off their shoulders by automating it.

It harnesses the power of a partner company, called SelfKey, and enables the potential clients to upload their credentials on the cloud without worrying about its security as the tool is entirely decentralized due to the blockchain technology running at its core.

Please note that apart from the organizational perspective, this dApp can also be used by individuals for verifying their credentials by paying a fee. For instance, they can perform investor checks, fund screening, document authentication, etc.

One of its best perks in the crypto industry is that it allows the organizations to check their client’s wallet spending against any risk indicator stored in KYC-Chain’s database and AML laws.

SkuChain

The supply chain industry is rich with data and apart from that, what makes it so sensitive is that there are several vendors and manufacturers involved at every stage and keeping a track record of everything is always a tedious task.

Therefore, SkuChain has come up with a unique solution (i.e., Inventory Tracker) where they allow the users to maintain the provenance of all decisions, the involvement of stakeholders at particular stages and even maintaining documents for all the stages right from the extraction of raw materials to delivering a final product to the end-user. It ensures that, if at any point, there is a backlash against a product, we always have the right stakeholder to hold accountable as an auditable trail is maintained.

Chainyard

This dApp is quite similar to SkuChain, but has a much greater audience as it aims to bridge up the gap between an array of supply chains all at once and the basic problem it addresses belongs to the issues in maintaining SIMS (Supplier Information Management Systems). These traditional systems are not only slow, but it has become irrational to rely on them, particularly when sensitive data is being exchanged.

Therefore, Chainyard has introduced a permissioned blockchain network that entertains the following 3 aspects:

• Supplier validation: whenever a potential supplier applies to become a part of the network, a comprehensive background check is conducted

• Onboarding: the process where a potential supplier transitions from an actual member of the network is streamlined – after validations

• The entire lifecycle of information management: the processes where all network members communicate with each other seamlessly and can share data

Although there will be a learning curve for personnel using outdated systems, the long-term benefits would be significant as they no longer have to rely on lengthy emails, spreadsheets, word/PDF documents, sharing of certificates, etc.

This dApp is most likely to have a significant market share as it is backed by IBM and therefore, the potential clients would not have “trust” issues at all. Also, since IBM provides long term support for most of its projects, we can expect continuous improvements to the application as well and expect to see a wide variety of supply chains connecting to its main network.

Block Array

This is yet another application that solves the document storage issues in the supply chain industry. Although they are operating in a very niche market and not even covering the entire scope of supply chain management, they have targeted the sweet spot very well!

As you must have realized by reading the blog post above, the supply chain industry relies heavily on document and data sharing and since they are using orthodox methods of doing so, they are quite slow and often get hacked, thus losing the sensitive data and facing lawsuits by their clients. So, if an organization only wants to move their document storage on blockchain, they don’t have to go for big and complex systems like SkuChain and Chainyard as they can simply use Block Array and solve most of their problems.

State of Delaware’s blockchain initiative

Although they have not given a name to their app as of yet, this project is worth mentioning in this list. It is always good to see that governments are also trying to implement blockchain technology in their use cases as it will boost the acceptance rate drastically.

It is worth mentioning that since the application is still in the development phase, they are focusing it on archiving public documents and storing them in a secure environment. Once this is done, the state will be aiming to make this app usable by a variety of stakeholders. For instance, all the private sector companies that partner with government agencies will be able to store and share data with each other via this app, thus removing the issue of maintaining a varying level of securities at their end, creating a trustless environment (there is no need to trust a person, as the blockchain itself acts as a source of truth) and possibly, enabling the users to perform different actions on these documents.

You can read more about this project here.

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