A lot of hype exists about the possibilities using blockchain technology. Almost everyone I talk to wants to know what use cases are being actively worked on. Take identity management for example. We have faced identity management challenges since the dawn of the Internet. Prime among them: security, privacy, and usability. Because people have to send payment credentials to each credit card merchant they use, credit card theft and transaction fraud has been increasing each year. In 2014, fraud cost U.S. retailers $32 billion, according to a LexisNexis report. While protocols like 3-D Secure were created to increase security for online credit and debit transactions, they have not been widely adopted and face many security issues that affect the consumer. In terms of privacy, why do we have to show a driver license in order to buy alcohol if all that is needed is a birthdate? If we’re shopping on our mobile phones, how can we selectively share our identification details?
One of BlockCypher’s customers, ShoCard, saw these challenges and sought to quickly bring a solution to market using blockchain technology. But Shocard needed a way to quickly experiment. It could have taken them months to test a small number of ideas using blockchain technology and they would have wasted a lot of development time, increasing costs and risk. After developing an application, they still would have…
