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Blockchain for marketplaces

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Blockchain for cloud and distributed computing

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Blockchain for IoT

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Blockchain for prediction markets

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Blockchain for ride hailing

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Blockchain for social media

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Decentralization

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Blockchain for digital advertising

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Blockchain for banking

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Blockchain for Real Estate

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Blockchain for gaming

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Blockchain for Fundraising: ICO and STO

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Cryptocurrency, NFTs, digitally native tokens or linked to physical goods... any asset on the blockchain enjoys easy and free circulation.







Blockchain’s main innovation is being able to replace a trusted third party with a decentralized network running the protocol. It is the protocol that allows transferring values stored on the blockchain, as long as the conditions for such transfer are met (data is correct, users have the necessary rights etc). This characteristic renders obsolete any third party verification, still necessary today to transfer money, buy a stock, transfer ownership rights...



The data on blockchain can be transferred freely and without any central authority. 



<h2>Cryptocurrencies and tokens </h2>



Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum are native to their blockchains, as they secure their functioning.&nbsp;



Aside from native currencies, blockchains allow the creation of <a href="https://d.center/explore/tokens-2" class="ek-link">tokens </a>- digital units that can represent any value conferred to them. Whether fungible (like stablecoins representing dollars for example) or non-fungible (like an NFT representing a plot of land in the metaverse), tokens can be easily created by deploying smart contracts via a blockchain transaction, and, once created, they enjoy the same ease of circulation as any other cryptoasset.







<h2>What can be tokenized?</h2>







Almost anything can be tokenized. Real estate, commodities, stocks, art, gaming artifacts, music… ICO (Initial Coin Offering) and its variants STO (Security Token Offering) and IDO (Initial DEX Offering) are also examples of tokenization.







<h2>Why tokenize an asset? </h2>



Asset tokenization is well on its way in revolutionizing the economy of ownership rights. Tokens exist on a blockchain and enjoy the ease of transfer and immutability it offers.



Tokenizing an asset allows notably: 



<ul><li>to democratise an asset: a painting, whose value if split in 1000 tokens, can be bought by 1000 people rather than by one person. Thus markets traditionally available only to institutional investors or high net worth individuals, become more democratic and allow to diversify individuals’ savings portfolio. Swiss bank Sygnum tokenizing a Picasso painting, or art platform Maecenas allowing collective investing into art are good examples;</li></ul>



<ul><li>to make an asset more accessible: a tokenized stock (also called synthetic stock, or synth) can be bought by any person with a smartphone anywhere in the world. This is a radical change comparing to the traditional methods of buying stocks, which often include a bank or another intermediary, and numerous restrictions;</li></ul>



<ul><li>to make an asset more liquid: some goods, like art, are difficult to sell because of a massive red tape that is often compulsory. Once these assets are tokenized, however, they become liquid and can be exchanged and transferred worldwide and&nbsp; in real time - and without any intermediaries;</li></ul>



<ul><li>to secure ownership rights: important for all the assets, but especially obvious for the digital art. A digital artpiece can be copied as many times as possible, if it is associated with an NFT, the blockchain will always show the true owner;</li></ul>



<ul><li>to guarantee an asset’s authenticity: a fan buying an NFT sold by their favourite artist can always make sure that it’s not fake: the blockchain will show all transactions involving this piece, starting from its creation (which must come from the artist’s address);</li></ul>



<ul><li>to confer special qualities to an asset: a collectible NFT can grant its owner access to special content, like the Stoner Cats animated movie. tokenized concert tickets can set a maximum price, at which they can be resold. Tokens are essentially smart contracts, which means they are programmable.</li></ul>







<h2>Where to buy tokenized assets ?</h2>



Tokenized physical objects are usually sold by the company that has tokenized them: a real estate investment company like RealT, an art platform like Maecenas...



The majority of tokens are digitally native though and can be bought at exchanges, centralized or not.



When it comes to NFTs, their enormous popularity has spurred a massive growth of NFT marketplaces of all kinds. Most popular are still Opensea and Rarible, but as exchanges like Coinbase, Binance or FTX start opening their own NFT marketplaces, they become ubiquitous.

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Blockchain for data certification

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Blockchain for supply chain

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Blockchain for audit

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Blockchain for charity

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Blockchain for environment

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Transparency and immutability

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Blockchain for P2P lending

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Blockchain for insurance

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The Internet gambling is growing at a high speed, with more and more people routinely visiting online casinos. The sector, estimated at $40bn, is presenting with its issues though. The users must trust that casino's algorithms are impartial and reflect the real life probabilities, without having any mean to verify them. Obviously, there are some that trick the game. Furthermore, even trusting users are sometimes banned from using online casinos (or their banks are banned from wiring money to these casinos) because of constraints of their residence jurisdictions.



The blockchain can remedy both these problems. The gambling algorithm can be registered within a smart contract and be executed in exactly the same way it was designed for every gambling round. The fact that the smart contract is registered on a blockchain and basically run by every member of the blockchain's network guarantees the algorithm's integrity. The latter is often open source, so that everyone can check its fairness. This concept has been coined as "provably fair" and numerous blockchain-based betting sites propose provably fair games.



As to the regulations issue, the blockchain gambling sites have lighter KYC standards, with some skipping the registration part altogether, allowing everyone to bet. Paying in crypto bypasses banking restrictions.



Using blockchain would also reduce the "house edge" (predetermined odds assuring that house always wins in a long term, thus ensuring casino revenue), which exists as a byproduct of financial middlemen, licensing fees, and so on. Whereas traditional offline casinos assure 15% house edge, online casinos - around 5% house edge, blockchain-based gambling sites can go down as low as 1%.



Blockchain for online gambling



Some of blockchain-friendly casinos, such as Fortune Jack or Bitcoin Casino, keep a centralized structure, proposing both traditional games and provably fair games, with a betting in crypto. Other, simpler gambling websites such as SatoshiDice or dice2.win exist purely as a smart contract interface: a user sends a betting amount in crypto to the smart contract address, the smart contract generates a number without revealing it, a user guesses a number and wins if this number is less than the one generated by the smart contract. The mechanism is provably fair and no registration needed.



The gambling Dapps are being built on different blockchains and one can bet with ETH at dice2.win, BCH at SatoshiDICE, EOS at EOSbet, TRX at TRONbet…

Blockchain for gambling

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Blockchain for money streaming

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Automated trustless agreements

Bitcoinnn

Blockchain in use

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Blockchain and DLT types

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Blockchain is a recent invention. It is still in early stages of its development, and yet a burgeoning new blockchain-related industry is already emerging. Improving the technology, finding new use cases, developing the ecosystem… and of course looking to change the world are some of these new endeavors.



This section is dedicated to exploring different facets of the blockchain and bringing answers to an array of questions one might have - from “Why do we need it” to “How does it work” or “What is it used for”. The structure of Explore descending from general concepts to specific notions, you are welcome to choose your own path according to your interests and go down the rabbit hole. 



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<h2><a href="https://d.center/explore/blockchain-philosophy" class="ek-link">Blockchain philosophy</a></h2>



Why are crypto enthusiasts so enthusiastic? Blockchain is not a trivial technology, but the one that has a potential to change the very way our societies operate. Every organization and every community rely on trusted third parties, responsible for storing and managing data, with all the related risks . Replacing these trusted third parties with a decentralized data handling mechanism would eliminate much of the system’s deficiencies, and that’s exactly what blockchain does. 



<h2><a href="https://d.center/explore/bitcoin" class="ek-link">Bitcoin</a></h2>



The very first implementation of the blockchain, Bitcoin was created to solve the deficiencies of the monetary system and replace the so-called fiat money (dependent on Central Banks) with cryptocurrency, a completely independent alternative that runs on a decentralized peer-to-peer network.&nbsp; 



<h2><a href="https://d.center/explore/blockchain-fundamentals" class="ek-link">Blockchain fundamentals</a></h2>



A blockchain is a collection of technologies and methods that allow gathering data into a ledger, which is stored and updated by the network’s participants (which anyone can become). Data handling is its main role, although it also allows embedding more complex programs and running them in a decentralized way.&nbsp; 



<h2><a href="https://d.center/explore/blockchain-in-practice" class="ek-link">Blockchain in practice</a></h2>



Most blockchain encounters today are about cryptocurrencies - Bitcoin and many others that have appeared since. However the understanding of the technology becoming increasingly subtle, other blockchain real-world use cases appear, notably with the development of decentralized applications, or Dapps. A developed ecosystem makes these functionalities readily available and opens up previously restricted-access industries, such as finance.&nbsp;&nbsp; 



<h2><a href="https://d.center/explore/crypto-regulation" class="ek-link">Crypto regulation</a></h2>



Blockchain and its products are becoming an increasingly important part of our lives and our economies, which inevitably attracts the regulators’ attention. This is not a bad thing, though, for the right laws can support the technology and protect its users against related scams. Depending on a country however the attitude varies greatly, from progressive to autocratic. 



<h2>Beginner’s path </h2>



If you do not yet have a clear idea of what it is you would like to explore, let us suggest you a suite of 8 articles that will smoothly introduce you to the world of cryptoassets and Bitcoin in particular: it will help you to understand what it is used for, how it works and some necessary tools allowing to buy some of it.



<a href="https://d.center/explore/blockchain-philosophy" class="ek-link">Blockchain philosophy</a>



<a href="https://d.center/explore/bitcoin" class="ek-link">Bitcoin</a>



<a href="https://d.center/explore/how-does-bitcoin-work" class="ek-link">How does Bitcoin work</a>



<a href="https://d.center/explore/bitcoin-mechanism " class="ek-link">Bitcoin mechanism</a>



<a href="https://d.center/explore/blockchain-in-practice" class="ek-link">Blockchain in practice</a>



<a href="https://d.center/explore/blockhain-ecosystem" class="ek-link">Blockchain ecosystem</a>



<a href="https://d.center/explore/crypto-wallets" class="ek-link">Crypto wallets</a>



<a href="https://d.center/explore/crypto-exchanges " class="ek-link">Crypto exchanges</a>

Some blockchains were created to enable cryptocurrencies. Others serve primarily as smart contract platforms, allowing to decentralize digital economy: online platforms, financial flows, collaboration... and of course the nascent Web3 sector.



The number of blockchain use cases is constantly growing, as does its ecosystem.



This is a high level view on what blockchain in practice looks like today. 



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Cryptocurrencies </h2>



With <a href="https://d.center/explore/bitcoin" class="ek-link">Bitcoin</a>, the first practical application of the blockchain was currency, or more precisely “P2P electronic cash system”, as described by Satoshi Nakamoto himself. Invented in order to remedy the failing monetary system, the blockchain proved itself to be particularly well suited for such a role, providing an independent, immutable and transparent transaction ledger.&nbsp;



Following Bitcoin, new <a href="https://d.center/explore/cryptocurrencies" class="ek-link">cryptocurrencies</a>-focused blockchains have emerged, trying to ameliorate this or that aspect of the blockchain: transaction throughput like Litecoin, privacy like Monero… 



Some cryptocurrencies have appeared as an extension of a community, like the Doge memecoin.



Other cryptocurrencies, created as tokens (and not native coins), serve as representations of fiat currencies on the blockchain. They are called stablecoins, the biggest ones being USD-pegged Tether and Circle.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Smart contract blockchains</h2>



Currency is not the only thing that can profit from the blockchain's decentralization.



Virtually any digital system (hence most of organisation that use them) can benefit from eliminating central authority.



This is achieved through the use of <a href="https://d.center/en/explore/smart-contrats" class="ek-link">smart contracts</a> - autonomous and self-executing programs that run on the blockchain. Smart contracts allow the development of DApps, or decentralized applications, and power the emerging web3 sector.



The first and most popular smart contract platform is Ethereum blockchain, but it has many competitors: Solana, Cosmos, BNB Chain... etc



The difference between a Cryptocurrency blockchain and a Smart contract blockchain is now rather theoretical and can be understood only by questioning the blockchain’s purpose: whether it was conceived to support a currency or to host elaborate smart contracts. Both types of blockchains need a native coin to pay the network nodes for running the protocol, however in cryptocurrencies’ case the native coin is a goal in itself, whereas for smart contract blockchains it is a payment for running smart contracts. 



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Blockchain use cases</h2>



Almost every traditional economic sector can use blockchain's qualities.



⛓️ Decentralized systems are intrinsically fairer than centralized ones: their transparency and self-executing nature are much better in redistributing value and allowing the users to be true and sole owners of their data. This quality is substantial when it comes to online platforms, be it social media, cloud computing or ride hailing.



⛓️ Blockchain being a transparent and immutable ledger, it is also particularly suitable for data certification purposes.



⛓️ Smart contracts can automate numerous processes, not only increasing the overall cost and time effectiveness, but also providing users with a guarantee that no one can unilaterally change the rules underlying the DApp.&nbsp;This notably enables the new type of trustless collaboration within DAOs, or Decentralized Autonomous Orgnizations.



⛓️ Finally, the blockchain structure allows fast and easy data and values transfer, without any borders or other limitations. This quality is highly appreciated in finance, and many traditional players have already incorporated crypto into their offer: exchange, custody, asset management, asset tokenization... Besides, a crypto-native version of finance, known as the DeFi, is developing very fast.







<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Web3</h2>



Blockchain and cryptoassets can be used both in centralized and decentralized way. 



The exact boundary between the two is not always clear, but usually when the core operations happen on-chain, the value is transparently distributed, and governance decisions are taken by the community, we can speak about <a href="https://d.center/en/explore/web3" class="ek-link">Web3</a>, a new era of the internet where users are in control. 



The most obvious example of web2 using blockchain vs web3 are exchanges: a centralized one like Binance is centrally managed and controls its users' cryptoassets, while a decentralized exchange like Uniswap never gets in the possession of its users' funds and evolves according to its DAO's decisions.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Blockchain ecosystem</h2>



Blockchain is a collective endeavor, and it needs an extensive ecosystem to function and to serve its purposes. 



Numerous products and services have therefore been developed: <a href="https://d.center/explore/crypto-wallets" class="ek-link">wallets </a>to interact with the blockchain, <a href="https://d.center/explore/crypto-exchanges" class="ek-link">exchanges</a><a href="https://d.center/explore/crypto-exchanges" class="ek-link"> </a>to buy and sell crypto, <a href="https://d.center/en/explore/oracles" class="ek-link">oracles</a> to interact with the real world and feed information to smart contracts, not to mention the miners who maintain the network, or interoperability protocols connecting different blockchains. 



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"> </h2>

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The blockchain is not limited to cryptocurrencies. It has unique characteristics that could disrupt numerous industries and sectors.



The blockchain is a tool allowing to store and transfer data, run programs and create tokens  - and all this without any central authority (see <a href="https://d.center/explore/blockchain-functions" class="ek-link">Blockchain functions</a>).  These valuable qualities could be used to solve various problems, enhance overall efficiency and in general improve the fairness of our society. 



Blockchain advantages can be presented under four different angles:



Transparency and immutability, which makes a blockchain a source of reliable and provable information. Useful for data certification and traceability purposes in supply chains, audit, document authentication, control over charities etc.



Easy creation and transfer of values, allowing to digitize (or more precisely tokenize) practically any kind of value and exchange it via borderless and fast networks. Used extensively in finance and banking, but also in sectors marked by a significant red tape, such as real estate. Using NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, it is possible to tokenize unique pieces and even attribute special features to them - a quality that is being extensively used in gaming and art.



Decentralization, a crucial quality needed to organize processes without relying on a third party. Any platform-based domain, such as social media, cloud, ride hailing or marketplace, can become more efficient, secure, censorship-resistant and fair by eliminating the middleman and connecting the users directly.



Automated trustless agreements, enabled by smart contracts, guarantee automatic execution of agreement terms, reducing the risk of someone meddling with them and liberating both parties from administrative work. This quality is being used in almost every other blockchain application, however it is particularly noticeable in insurance, P2P lending and online gambling. It is also at the origin of a promising new type of payment - money streaming.



The blockchain technology is still young, and not every potential is fully exploited yet. Some directions still require a lot of adjusting and others need to find a more practical or less expensive implementation. New blockchains, protocol modification and new blockchain layers are emerging to help find a response to particular issues and put the blockchain to even bigger practical use.