15 Blockchain Trends that Will Transform Businesses in 2023

• By Michael Anderson
• 05-05-2023
• Blockchain

Blockchain has surpassed the expectations of the tech pandits and has slowly become a mainstream phenomenon. What was once merely an idea has now become a necessity for every business. Companies are the world are now adopting Blockchain to solve countless issues with its ironclad security and seamless functionalities. However, Blockchain is still new and evolving every day, which makes us wonder, what will be the future trend of Blockchain? In this article, we will provide a list of top blockchain trends that will dominate the market in 2023.

Top Blockchain Trends in 2023

1. Blockchain As a Service

One of the simplest ways to measure the success of new technology is when companies provide them as a service. Just like SaaS, businesses can now build their own blockchain application through BaaS. Blockchain offers tons of use cases for businesses that they can utilize to streamline their work process. However, small or medium businesses can't afford to hire in-house developers to build them. That’s why BaaS providers offer an easy way to develop your own blockchain solution from the platform.

The future of BaaS is filled with opportunities for businesses and companies to create a unique solution that offers maximum security and transparency. Blockchain provides a secure place to store important data and share it with authorized people without exposing it to others. Businesses can use smart contracts with BaaS to achieve trust with other parties and ensure the quality of goods. BaaS will open doors for many businesses that need that type of security in an affordable way.

2. DeFi and ReFi

Decentralized finance and regenerative finance are the latest use case of blockchain technology. DeFi is already making waves as it provides a better financial solution for businesses. Defi removes the intermediary and allows customers to connect directly to financial services using smart contracts. It offers a transparent decentralized environment and builds trust among the users.

Regenerative finance is based on DeFi but offers an estimation of a natural asset built on preservation and regeneration. It focuses on preserving natural resources and works on their regeneration. It works by providing support to open-source software and carbon footprints. It allows businesses to work toward building a financial system that generates positive environmental and social outcomes.

3. Enterprise Blockchain Solution

Blockchain has many applications and use cases, but it currently only serves small companies or businesses due to its limitations. In the near future, Blockchain will provide enterprise-level solutions where large corporations can streamline their work effectively and efficiently. Companies can use Blockchain to solve multiple problems by leveraging enterprise blockchain solutions.

It will bring decentralization which allows companies to operate smoothly and communicate. It will secure the network by providing temper-proof data transactions on a large scale. With smart contracts, companies can automate many tasks and focus on the core value. Blockchain offers limited transaction speed and verification, which can create challenges for enterprise blockchain, but soon, they will provide blazing-fast solutions.

4. Stablecoin

As the name suggests, it is a cryptocurrency version of stable currency where prices are based on a commodity, reducing its volatile nature. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin have seen massive price hikes and drops in the past which creates uncertainties for the investor. Similarly, to fiat currency like the dollar, whose value is based on the federal gold reserve, the stablecoin will adopt this approach to provide a steady cryptocurrency in which prices do not fluctuate more often.

Stablecoin has different verities based on what they are backed by. Some stablecoins are backed by commodities like gold, others by fiat currency. Others are backed by certain cryptocurrencies or algorithms. It will help businesses to replace monetary exchange with stablecoin as they have better stability.

5. NFT

Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, made a wave in recent years and grabbed everyone's attention. NFTs have become an investment opportunity as the prices keep hiking through the roof. According to Statista, the current market size of NFTs is $1.6 billion and is expected to reach $3.16 billion by 2027.

In the near future, NFTs will be used as in-game currency with a blockchain environment. Metaverse will have an NFTs marketplace where users can buy, sell, or trade NFT art. Some of the well-known NFTs marketplaces are Opensea, Rarible, Axie Marketplace, and Foundation. With Blockchain, every NFT has a unique signature that cannot be replicated, and that’s why it's known as non-fungible.

6. Metaverse

Metaverse is the epitome of technological achievement. Ever since global giant Meta announced the virtual world of the metaverse, blockchain market share had risen significantly. Metaverse will use blockchain technology to build a decentralized network where users can safely conduct their transactions.

The future trend of Blockchain is heavily tied to the metaverse as it will revolutionize the way we operate. Users can utilize the crypto-economy culture in the metaverse by safely buying or selling goods with cryptocurrency. They can even buy, sell or trade NFTs on the platform. Blockchain will safeguard users against hacking and data breaches by employing immutability.

7. Green Blockchain

One of the biggest pitfalls of blockchain technology is that it's resource and energy intensive. It uses a large amount of power to compute every transaction. To reduce the carbon footprint and fossil fuel dependency, the future of Blockchain is heading toward green initiatives.

There are two ways we can change the way Blockchain consumes energy and save it. First, we depend on renewable energy sources like wind or solar power. This way, we don’t have to worry about power consumption. On the other hand, we can change the way blockchain process transaction through a consensus mechanism. One of the most popular consensus mechanisms is proof of work needs lots of energy to validate and verify transactions. We can change it to proof of work or the Federated Byzantine Agreement or others. It will reduce total energy consumption, and once Blockchain is adopted on a global scale, it will make a big difference.

8. Voting

Everyone knows the E-voting system is not sufficient, and it's easily hackable. That’s why we will see blockchain implementation in the voting system. Blockchain offers better security, a decentralized environment, tamper proof data, and smart contracts to automate certain tasks. It's an untapped market where we easily utilize Blockchain to create a perfect voting system.

Blockchain will expedite the prosses of verifying and validating votes to declare fair results. It will remove intermediaries, which will save a ton of expenses. Besides that, Blockchain will provide transparency in the system, allowing the voter to trust the voting system. Currently, big corporations and companies are already leveraging this technology for the board room and shareholder voting.

9. Sharding

Blockchain faces many limitations and challenges, including transaction speed. It’s the only reason businesses shy away from using it as it is not scalable. Sharding will allow Blockchain to process transactions faster and allow widespread implementation. Ethereum 2.0 will bring the sharding practice to clear the transaction verification rapidly.

Sharding in Blockchain refers to cutting down Blockchain into little pieces of shard. Doing this, every transaction is divided into many nodes, speeding up the process. All transactions will be verified in a parallel manner to process small subsets of data by various nodes. Once we start to use sharding, it will allow many businesses and enterprises to employ blockchain technology for their solution.

10. Layer 2

Similar to sharding, layer two scaling is a new approach to enhancing blockchain networks' capacity and transaction speed. Layer 1 is the blockchain network; layer 2 is a network that sits on top of the original blockchain network. Layer 2 scaling will increase the transaction speed, reduce the gas price, improve security, and build an application-specific network.

Currently, there are three types of layer-2 in the market. The state channel will open a two-way channel that will remove the intermediary to verify the transaction, lowering the transaction time. Apart from that, zero-knowledge rollups (ZK-Rollups) and optimistic rollups will reduce the gas fees and amp up the security.

11. Integration with Emerging Technology

Blockchain is only one of the latest technologies that will transform the future of business. Integrating it with other emerging technology like AI, machine learning, and the Internet of Things will create multiple solutions for companies. AI is the talk of the town nowadays with ChatGPT; Integrating with Blockchain will allow businesses to automate and validate certain tasks.

With 5G, we can use Blockchain to manage IoT devices worldwide from a single device. Machine learning will allow companies to process data faster and more securely with the help of Blockchain. We will see many use cases and applications in the near future where Blockchain will adopt these technologies to enhance the work process.

12. Gaming

The online and video gaming industry is one of the biggest markets in the world. According to Statista, the total gaming revenue for 2023 will reach $384.90 billion and grow beyond $500 billion by 2027. Blockchain integration with the gaming industry will usher in a new era of secure and transparent gaming platforms. Currently, cryptocurrency and NFTs are considered the biggest implementation point for blockchain for the gaming industry, but there are various other ways blockchain can enhance the gaming experience.

Blockchain will allow game makers to build decentralized gaming platforms where not one entity can dictate the rules and regulations. Players can buy, sell or trade collectible items in the game and immutability will keep their records safe. One of the most significant issues in online and multiplayer games is cheating and hackers. Blockchain can create an anti-cheat mechanism to prevent cheating in the game.

13. Next Generation Blockchain

Next generation blockchain refers to a new and advanced version that offers better transaction speed, security, and more. The first generation of blockchain is Bitcoin and all the other applications that come from it. The second generation is smart contracts and dApps along with others. The next generation will reduce or eliminate the challenges of previous generations.

The NextGen blockchain will offer a better version of web3, and smart contracts which will solve issues with scalability and transaction speed. It will allow better communication between different types of blockchain networks and enhance interoperability. It will also focus on environmentally sustainable blockchain networks. As per the predictions, the next generation of blockchain will have a 100,000-time speed of transaction than the previous one.

14. Mainstream Adoption

Blockchain offers a wide range of solutions, but it's currently limited to the techno-savvy industry. Outside of that, everyone has heard of blockchain but never used the technology. By going mainstream, blockchain will help millions of businesses around the world manage their data, security, and more. One of the biggest advantages of blockchain is security and in the age of digitalization, everyone needs to protect their privacy and data.

Many industries use traditional systems to overcome complex processes such as supply chain management, real estate, and more. Blockchain will simplify and automate some of the workloads from the process. It will eliminate intermediaries with smart contracts and improve security and traceability. It will allow businesses to operate using legacy systems on the blockchain with interoperability which will reduce costs.

15. Enhanced Security and Compliance

Blockchain has a higher sense of security with cryptographic algorithms, however, it still has some issues. Even though the blockchain platforms are secure and all data are tamper-proof, it lacks security when we access it through the internet. Hackers can intercept the data stream and steal all user's data without alerting the system.

Blockchain technology operates in a regulatory grey area with many issues yet to be fully addressed. Similarly, blockchain is still an uncharted territory and governments are still unsure of its safety. In the future, blockchain must comply with government regulations and rules to operate worldwide. Once the government understands how to regulate and oversee blockchain-based apps, it will release new rules and regulations.

Conclusion

Blockchain offers an immutable, transparent, secure, and decentralized environment where businesses can thrive. Companies around the world are adopting blockchain technology to keep their data secure and improve their work and reduce costs. In this article, we have provided some unrivaled trends in the blockchain market that will change how the business operates. With the latest and most affordable technology and by hiring blockchain developers, even small businesses can leverage blockchain technology to gain more ground in this competitive environment.