If you’ve been following our articles and social media feeds, then you know we’ve discussed this topic in the past. As 2023 begins, especially after all the global volatility of 2022, we wanted to create an updated guide for those starting a blockchain project this year.

Big Changes in 2022

Even though 2022 started off optimistically after the previous year’s historic crypto highs, these hopes were quickly dashed by the end of Q1 with the events unfolding in eastern Europe and the steady fall of crypto prices. Things for crypto did not improve. Luna imploded, then FTX, and the collapse of hundreds of affiliated and affected companies damaged public trust in the crypto-space, and by extension the blockchain sector. Token Sales also proved to be increasingly difficult sells for investors, who were more cautious with their money particularly after the FTX debacle.

NFTs, one of the hottest trends in 2021, continued to slump in 2022 and hit rock bottom in the summer. As many predicted, it turned out that NFTs are more of a speculative “tulip” bubble than anything else. However, additional use cases for NFTs eventually did pop up, trying to bridge the gap between real and digital world. We’ll see how they fare in 2023.

Similar to NFTs, the metaverse continued to be hyped in 2022, however as yet very little has come of that hype. In fact, companies like Meta that went all in saw their stock prices drop throughout the year as investors soured on the metaverse hype. Time will tell if all the promise of a virtual universe actually comes true.

All together, the events in 2022 showed that speculative use cases for blockchain technology are not sustainable in a world that’s more concerned at the moment with real issues like war, supply chain failures, inflation, and pandemic. For blockchain projects to be successful, just being a cool new technology is not enough; they will need to present real world value to businesses navigating these hard times.

New year = New Context

We can expect big changes in 2023, and things are still uncertain. However, we can make some safe bets. First and foremost, the issue of regulations and jurisdictions will become increasingly important as more countries introduce regulation packages on cryptocurrencies, and by extension tokens and other digital assets. In addition to governmental oversight, the established financial industry is also moving into the space, leveraging their position and deep pockets to replace a thriving competitive market with their own solutions that are integrated into their own product lines.

The good news for those of us in the enterprise blockchain space is that the market will most likely shift towards more industrial use cases, education, and training. What 2022 showed is that businesses need more knowledge of how the technology works and how it can be applied to actually create real value.

Another safe bet to make is that fundraising to be quite difficult this year. More companies to go bankrupt from the FTX fallout, and in general this will cast a black cloud over the crypto and and crypto-adjacent spaces. This means that token sales will be more difficult than ever before. Investors are going to need far more than a good story about new technology or marketing value; real world impact is going to be more important than in the past to accomplish fundraising.

Special Considerations in 2023

This year, enterprise blockchain projects will need precise budget planning to deal with the difficulties in fundraising that the “crypto winter” has caused. They will need to show their potential investors a crystal clear value proposition and strategy on how to achieve goals.

To help with this budgeting, new projects should weigh the build vs. buy question more carefully than in previous years. Purchasing technology allows startups to better plan their go-to-market timelines and budgets, and can give them access to more advanced tech than otherwise possible without any nasty cost overruns. In the past, startups have tended to build from scratch. We’ve seen how that approach has fared when markets crash and investors tuck tail.

Finally, new projects will need as close to a perfect product and market fit as possible, before the first line of code is written or the first whitepaper is published. This means a real use case in a specific industry, with a demonstrable need that can be solved by your product. This means no fat; only lean, mean, problem solving machines.

Evergreen Considerations

Does Your Project Actually Need Blockchain?

This might seem like a strange place to start, but it’s a very important question. Despite all the hype around crypto and DeFi, blockchain technology is simply a tool, and as with any tool it does a few specific things very well. It is not a magic, fix-all. There is often general confusion around what blockchain is and what it’s really good for, as it too can become swept up in all the crypto hype. As a young technology, blockchain still has room for improvement in order to meet its true potential. What it can do now, it does very well; but like any tool, it has limitations.

We’ve discussed the question “what is blockchain actually good for?” in previous articles, but very simply there are a lot of situations where distributed ledger technology just should not be used. Applications that require high speed for example, or high volumes of data storage are not a good fit for blockchain. If, however, you can make use of time-stamping or need to work with digital assets in a token economy, then you can’t really do better than blockchain.

Designing for Success

To better answer that question, it’s worth thinking about what success looks like when it comes to blockchain in business. We see three possible scenarios in which a blockchain project is set up for success. The first case is where you take an existing business model and make it cheaper, faster, and/or safer, and thus more competitive, by using inherent blockchain advantages. Again, this only works if the underlying model can actually benefit! As always, pick the right tool for the job. The second case is using or creating a brand new business model and then finding a way to attract a large number of users right from the start, even if that comes at an initial loss, like so many NFT projects are doing right now.

With digital platforms like this, a large user base makes practically anything possible. The final option, while not our favorite , has proven quite successful for some in the past (remember ICOs?); issue a token, detach the project from a real world value, and allow the price of the token to float freely so as to tap into the rich pool of crypto speculators. Why detach? Because if the price can only move within real-world boundaries it is simply not interesting enough for the kind of speculative audience which still makes 99% of all token buyers worldwide. But again, we don’t recommend this approach.

Legal Frameworks and Jurisdictions

Once you’ve decided that blockchain really is the best choice for your business, the next step should be to figure out the legal frameworks required for your jurisdiction. Too many projects wait until it’s too late to figure this out; it really should be done first, especially in 2023 as regulation packages are currently being considered and implemented in the post FTX world; the regulatory landscape is constantly in flux. As a new technology, legislation and regulation around blockchain, crypto, and DeFi (and they are often lumped together), particularly when it comes to trading tokenized assets, varies drastically from country to country. You’ll need to decide if you want to risk setting up a business inside a country that hasn’t passed any blockchain legislation, as future laws might not be in your favor. Some popular “friendly” jurisdictions that offer clear regulations for, blockchain and crypto projects include Singapore, Malta, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland.

Consider also the other companies that may be in your industry, as there might be additional resources for new blockchain startups. The Zug region of Switzerland, for example, is home to Crypto Valley, an area full of blockchain and crypto companies, including Ethereum. Here there are a number of associations, accelerators, incubators, and other helpful resources and partnership opportunities for new companies. Once you’ve decided on a use-case, business model, and location, it’s on to the next big decision.

Choosing a Blockchain Infrastructure

To build or to buy? That’s always the question. When it comes to enterprise blockchain applications, we always think it’s best to buy (though we might be a little biased.) Here’s our argument: blockchain technology is still new, complex, and rapidly changing. It’s a highly specialized industry that, when used for enterprise, can be responsible for millions of dollars/euros/francs etc. The risks, along with the barriers to entry if you go it alone, are very high. Most people who want to explore the ocean or take to the skies wouldn’t build their own submarine or airplane. It’s the same with blockchain infrastructure; building from scratch requires expertise, time, money, and effort that the vast majority of companies simply don’t have, especially not startups. It makes sense to use an existing infrastructure that can be extended and customized, not only for the cost savings, but also for the reliability and support down the road.

Selecting a technology partner is a big step towards making your project a reality. Make sure they understand what you want or, if you aren’t quite sure yourself, make sure they are flexible and willing to offer advice and expereince. After all, in such a young industry, adoption benefits everyone, and sharing knowledge is a huge part of making that happen. Ask your provider about their plans for future proofing and blockchain flexibility, as you can be certain that protocols will continue to change each year. A good infrastructure provider should see these things coming down the line and be flexible enough to help you adapt your solution.

Finally, get as clear a picture as possible about fees and costs. As the old saying goes, you get what you pay for, but with such a new tech, you can end up paying a lot more than you bargained for, particularly if you need to transact on a public blockchain or integrate new tech with existing software and protocols. A good infrastructure provider should be transparent about fees upfront, and have an idea about long term costs as well.

Testing, Testing, 1–2–3

You’ve made it this far, now it’s time to start building. But whether you buy an infrastructure or build your own, one important thing needs to be kept in mind; whatever happens on a blockchain, stays on a blockchain. While this is one of the reasons why blockchain is such a secure, trust-less ledger, it also means mistakes are literally permanent. And when you’re developing a new token economy solution for a business, there are going to be tweaks and changes along the way. This means that any erroneous transactions or early tests could end up in your permanent chain, especially messy if you’re running on a public blockchain like the Ethereum Mainnet, which is likely because it happens to be the world’s most popular public blockchain with the largest user base and most universal protocols.

Additionally, each transaction on a public chain like Ethereum can be very costly, especially at the moment, making thorough testing and development prohibitively expensive in a live environment. These “gas” costs have been so high, in fact, that they have squeezed out many young projects due to un-affordable prices. Fortunately, there are new blockchains popping up regularly, you just have to be careful to pick one that will actually help your project in the long run, rather than constrain it.

Additional Considerations

There are a few more additional things to consider before you double down on either an infrastructure provider or start developing a platform from scratch. All of these issues stem from the fact that blockchain is a new technology and the space is rapidly evolving. Remember, NFTs went from unknown to mainstream popularity in just a few months. The first thing to keep in mind is future proofing: what happens if the blockchain you select to launch your project on is no longer supported in 5 years? What happens when the few multi-chain protocols evolve, or when new protocols come out? You’ll need a way to move existing ledgers to new chains, or update tokens. This is another reason why an infrastructure provider makes sense, especially for startups.

Another factor that really came to the forefront of blockchain and crypto conversations in 2021 was the issue of environmental impact. Certain cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, are famously power hungry, requiring massive amounts of energy to mine and to validate transactions. There have been multiple solutions presented, such as Ethereum’s recent consensus mechanism shift that drastically improved its efficiency. Even so, not all blockchain or token solutions are equally friendly to the environment, and in an era of #climatecrisis and increased focus on corporate responsibility, especially in the social media crucible that is the blockchain/crypto/DeFi space, this issue should be taken seriously.

Finally, whether you choose an infrastructure provider or develop a solution yourself, you’ll need to think about future support and maintenance, both logistically and in terms of fees. Especially if you decide to build from scratch, you’ll need to think about bug fixes and patches, customer support, protocol changes, and feature upgrades. This is a big part of the future sustainability of your project, particularly if your blockchain solution has a customer facing side, such as an app. If your solution uses blockchain only in the backend, behind the scenes, then your priority will be on maintaining stability and reliability rather than customer support.

Realizing a Successful Blockchain Project

We’ve reached the part of the timeline where you’re ready to start actually building something. It may seem like there’s a lot of hoops to jump through before you even get started… and you’d be right. Blockchain is still brand new, and most people are still figuring out what it’s good for, how to use it, and where it fits into the current business, financial, and political ecosystems. But don’t worry, the number of resources grows every month, and there are lots of helpful, interesting people out there willing to support your project in some way. In many ways, there’s never been a better time to build with blockchain, whether you’ve got a fresh startup brewing or you’re looking to integrate new technologies into an existing business. Good luck!

At CoreLedger, we believe that blockchain is a practical technical solution to improve and solve a wide variety of issues across industries and sectors, which is why we try to cut through the hype and focus on real-world applications, not just what’s technically possible.

CoreLedger’s mission is to help businesses of all sizes quickly and affordably access the benefits of blockchain technology. From issuing a simple token to enterprise-grade token economy solutions, we have all the tools and components you need to quickly and affordably integrate blockchain into your business whether you’re a new startup or a big multinational enterprise.

Interested in our results-focused, real-world approach? Visit our website for more information, or get in touch with us directly to discuss your project.

It’s been a Year

Let’s be honest: for crypto, 2022 was a bloodbath. Massacre after massacre this year continued to show that the vast majority of people prefer to chase easy money than use a cutting edge technology to its full potential. Just a few weeks ago, the FTX catastrophe annihilated all hopes that the “Crypto Winter” might soon be over, and most speculators now shiver in fear that the crisis could yet take an even uglier turn.

But cryptocurrency is just one side of the coin (sorry), the one application of blockchain technology that managed to capture global imaginations for the past few years. We have always maintained that there are many more interesting and valuable applications for this distributed ledger technology (DLT) beyond crypto. Now more than ever it’s important to separate blockchain from crypto, and highlight the technology’s fundamentally useful features beyond speculation. With that in mind, here are 5 lessons we can learn from the past year that demonstrate why this is important.

5 Lessons from 2022

Lesson 1: TNSTAAFL

Although cryptocurrencies were seen by many as a utopian solution to everything from global poverty to borderless banking, from where we are standing in December 2022 it looks like it only helped the rich get richer, while exploiting the hopefuls and squeezing every last penny out of the many true believers who thought that things would be made better by decentralized currency. Most of the crypto space, it seems, was more interested in getting rich quickly than in spending time and resources building something that would have lasted, truly benefited a larger group, and generated steady returns.

Ultimately, the problem lies in human nature. Show people two options: One is hard work with the prospect of eventually succeeding and having modest but steady profits; and the other is a gamble, with a small chance of quickly getting fabulously rich, but the risk of loosing everything. Most it seems will choose the latter. Unfortunately, as history keeps proving, there is no workaround for work. Speculative bubbles continue to appear, and sometimes someone is lucky, but these never last and when they pop they take everyone with them. The fall of many crypto majors is a typical example of what happens when someone assumes the market can only move in a single direction. It’s safe to say that the old proverb remains true: There’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Lesson 2: “Real Value” will be even more important in 2023

However, this is not where the story ends. For crypto, 2022 was a bad year and it’s not looking like 2023 is going to be all that much better. For enterprise blockchain, however, it’s a different story entirely. Despite crypto’s freeze, the underlying technology has continually proven to be valuable in a wide variety of applications. Over the past few years, we have seen the emergence of innovative applications and business models that solve real problems. For example, secure digital identity solutions, or advances in logistics and proof-of-origin. Tokens, too, have become more “down to earth,” with real asset backing and/or understandable (and non-scammy) business models. This is how 2023 will most likely continue, striving for real-world applications of a helpful new technology.

Blockchain technology has always been uncomfortably wedged between its obviously perfect purpose of creating “digital money,” and this plethora of real-world use cases. But these can be difficult to apply for a variety of reasons. In some ways, it’s a bit like having an electric car while living in an area with very few charging stations. The electric car itself is great, but it has limited use if you have no means to charge it. Same with blockchain. It is a great tool to, for example, prove the authenticity of data; but first, things have to get more digital. Believe it or not, a lot of businesses and legal procedures still run on paper. It’s only in the last couple of years, partly due to the pandemic, that we have really seen a push towards digital transformation in many areas. And it’s not surprising, given that the number of people on this planet is rising, and with it the complexity of our social, financial, and cultural interactions.

Lesson 3: Navigating the Hype Cycle

One thing to consider as we prepare for a new year is where we are in the inevitable cycle of hype, disillusionment, and eventual productivity that helps to define the progress of technological development. Looking at the crypto market, it’s easy to conclude that we are deep in the trough of disillusionment. Blockchain, however… Blockchain, however, is a bit different to other new technologies where such a simple curve applies. Within the categories of Web3 and DLT there are many such curves which overlap. The NFT curve, for example, started around 2019 and peaked in 2021. These are in contrast to many cryptocurrencies, which can possess some form of intrinsic value, NFTs were sold as “art.” They are more a tulip bubble than anything else.

In early 2022, the trading of NFTs saw a dramatic drop. Prices were supported by people buying their own NFT’s to make them appear more valuable than they were. Since it is quite easy to produce an NFT “the classic way” it was clear that sooner or later there would be NFT’s in abundance. We will still see new NFT’s arriving on the market. Especially from famous brands, which picked up the idea at the peak of the cycle and — after having kicked of the project and funded it — will at least bring it home and make sure they don’t have to write off the investment completely.

There is little utility value in most NFTs these days, and given the economic downturn that is currently affecting the world, together with the uncertainty of 2023, most of the exciting and expensive NFT projects (mostly aimed at the metaverse) that would have given them more value have either been stopped or paused. The result is the same. Anyone expecting a real and functioning metaverse in the style of “ready player one” to emerge in 2023 should really temper their expectations. For the CoreLedger team, we are looking at a looming plateau of productivity. But more on that in Lesson 5.

Lesson 4: Nothing Lasts forever

Given the lessons we’ve discussed so far, it’s safe to say that for the market as a whole the outlook for 2023 is mixed. On the cryptocurrency front, things look rather bleak. Governments have been looking for ways to get the new technology under control, with many states already preparing tougher regulation in the aftermath of the FTX meltdown. Governments have an incentive, as well as the means, to block and counter any further adoption of unregulated cryptocurrencies. At this point, anyone should take that into account when making an investment decision in crypto.

Private coins might see a revival under these circumstances, but whatever moves in 2023 on the cryptocurrency front will be largely driven by institutions and CBDCs. The days of early mover advantage are long gone. Big money and big business is taking over the industry, and it will become yet another financial tool with leveraged products, the antithesis to the original idea of Bitcoin.

On the one hand, it’s safe to say this because people have “gotten wise” and the easy/gullible money is now more or less exhausted. The days of Token Sales backed by vapor and hot air are gone. At the same time there is a global economic crisis looming. Investors will carefully chose the projects and do due diligence before they commit their money. And in such a young industry, the few ‘older’ companies have a distinct advantage. The golden days of crypto are over after 2022. Even if prices move beyond their 2021 peak, the sentiment will never again be the same as it was.

Lesson 5: Stay Positive

A good analogy to think of when considering how new technology gets adopted, is a mining operation. As long as there is enough rich ore close to the surface nobody bothers digging long shafts into bedrock to reach the veins deep beneath the surface. But once the surface deposits are depleted, the miners move deeper. That’s exactly how one could visualize the state of the crypto and blockchain space. Crypto was the rich ore on the surface, but by now the easy money has been made, and between all the scams, market crashes, rising mining costs (both literal and environmental), and increasing regulation, it’s clear that the gold rush is well and truly over.

Token sales and NFT’s resembled yet another deposit close to the surface, and they were exploited even faster. But as we enter 2023, all that’s left for the market now are the large but hard to reach deposits; the ones where you actually have to invest work, time, and resources. That’s the industrial applications of blockchain technology. These may be difficult to exploit, but they will ultimately provide the whole mining operation (blockchain technology) with a steady supply of sustainable business. Not a 1000% profit of course, just regular business, with average but consistent profits. With most of the easy deposits now depleted, 2023 will be a year in which the technology shifts to industry.

That’s why the CoreLedger team is staying positive and looking forward to the coming year. We’ve already seen the emergence of applications such as track & trace on blockchain, certificates of authenticity for collectibles, art, jewels and documents, notarization, security enhancement, etc. That’s how the journey continues for us and our entire industry, by focusing on delivering real value to businesses. We hope you’ll join us in 2023.

At CoreLedger, we believe that blockchain is a practical technical solution to improve and solve a wide variety of issues across industries and sectors, which is why we try to cut through the hype and focus on real-world applications, not just what’s technically possible.

CoreLedger’s mission is to help businesses of all sizes quickly and affordably access the benefits of blockchain technology. From issuing a simple token to enterprise-grade token economy solutions, we have all the tools and components you need to quickly and affordably integrate blockchain into your business whether you’re a new startup or a big multinational enterprise.

Interested in our results-focused, real-world approach? Visit our website for more information, or get in touch with us directly to discuss your project.

One of the struggles new technologies often face is how difficult they are to use at the beginning of their life. In this article, we will take a look at some of the steps that blockchain, also known as distributed ledger technology (DLT), has taken towards commodification, when it can simply be used and integrated without difficulty.

A brief history of DLT

While most people say that the emergence of Bitcoin in 2009 marked the birthdate of blockchain, in actual fact the ingredients for the technology preceded Bitcoin by years, if not decades. As DLT entered mainstream consciousness, and especially after Ethereum launched, it became readily apparent that it was the perfect technology to implement financial products and to be used for payment processes.

This fit was so vastly successful that, in the years between the launch of the first (successful) ICO in 2014 by the Ethereum Foundation and the dark “crypto winter” of 2018, the one thing that everyone interested in DLT talked about was the market cap of cryptocurrencies and tokens, whose numbers were steadily growing. Everyone wanted to be in Crypto, and billion dollar-valued startups were built on this foundation.

However, there was, and still is, a catch. Everyone working with DLT and financial products outside of the traditional banking system faces the stiffest competition possible; a system rigged against them; a nemesis that is the stuff of nightmares in the form of banks and governmental regulators. Neither of these entities are the fastest when it comes to adapting to new technologies. In fact it took five years until regulators noticed Bitcoin at all. When they finally did it was largely due to the well publicized heists from failed crypto exchanges like Mt. Gox that led to people losing millions.

Then slowly, but with the determination of a glacier, regulatory constraints were introduced and new laws were passed. One by one entrepreneurs faced the prospect of either giving up their businesses, moving to another, more favorable jurisdiction, or complying with regulation and doing all the things that were the exact opposite of the idea of a free and decentralized transaction, one of the main selling points of blockchain. This meant acquiring customer data (KYC), checking identities, backgrounds, and the source of funds (AML), and sharing this data with governments. It also meant the blocking of funds, recording of transaction pathways (travel rule) and so on. These days, whether it is existing banks and financial institutions taking over the crypto and token business, or startups from the early days slowly morphing into banks and financial institutions themselves, ultimately everything that has something to do with financial products or means of payment, e.g. stablecoins, will ultimately evolve until it looks just like the traditional banking system.

The end of blockchain?

To be clear, this is not ultimately a bad thing. It’s simply that we most likely have seen the maximum expansion of startup entrepreneurship in the crypto and token space. This includes NFTs, which have so far been useless for practical applications and served only as an outlet for all the speculative energy that got pent up from all the pressures on crypto.

So is this the inglorious end for blockchain? In a word, no. Financial products and tokens are certainly not the only uses for DLT. There is another promising area of applicability for blockchain technology outside of financial products. Regular businesses across many industries have been working on digitalization since the beginning of the century. Every big company now has a CDO (Chief Digital Officer), and while their task is not exactly to introduce blockchain technology itself, sooner or later they will discover that it is a tool that can’t be ignored when looking for solutions to digitalize their business processes.

Four benefits of DLT for enterprise digitalization

Why should enterprises take a closer look at blockchain technology? We have four good reasons to propose, all of which we’ve written about in the past as “token economy essentials.”

The first reason is that DLT can perfectly authenticate data. If things are documented on blockchain, these records are immutable (unchangeable) for the rest of time and, together with an immutable timestamp, this can be used for a wide variety of occasions where you need to prove something in time. Some examples here would be copyright topics, intellectual property (e.g. song texts or music), contract details, provenance of goods, a series of events to track shipments, litigation cases (e.g. non-disclosure agreements), damage reports, or proof that one is not responsible for certain damage. It’s also ideal for documenting the details of financial assets, e.g. to digitalize a prospectus, or for all kinds of audits. Land registry would also be a viable use-case for blockchain, and there are many more.

Accounting is the second reason DLT makes sense for businesses. Blockchain is perfect when several entities need to collaborate on numbers, especially because it naturally prevents race conditions from occurring. This means it prevents double entries or transactions from happening. For example, if two valid transactions for the same token are signed, DLT only allows one to be executed, and will dismiss the other.

But being ideal for accounting doesn’t necessarily mean that it must be financial products being accounted for. It can be anything; goods on stock (e.g. a daily report on an inventory) or really anything that has a known quantity. Most people know this as “Tokenization.” This collaboration can also include entities which otherwise wouldn’t trust each other enough to let one party control the data if there was a centralized database.

Apart from the mere accounting and transfer of units between accounts, DLT can also be used for other purposes. A token can represent access rights, and a simple mechanism, which we call “proof-of-key” can be used to translate the token ownership into a real-world action, such as unlocking a physical lock in real time, or granting the owner permission to print a 3D model. It could also be used to transport information through a decentralized command bus.

The third way that businesses can put DLT to good use is governance, or the enforcement of rules. The benefit of blockchain is, yet again, that there is no single party in control of the enforcement. Rather, execution is automatic and based on mathematics, so there is no way to bend or break rules. A very simple example of these rules is that the smart contract may determine who may and who may not get a unit through accounting.

The fourth, and possibly the most powerful reason, is value conversion. This is most commonly known as trading or, in financial cases, “DeFi.” In this case, blockchain has some digital tricks that are just not possible in the real world. Every trade incurs two transactions. If good A is purchased against money M, then the buyer transfers M to the seller and the seller transfers A to the buyer. Even if A and M are just coupons for the actual underlying values such as e.g. the SWIFT transaction that enables the bank to increase the numbers on the sellers account or the entry in the ERP system of the seller, which says that the buyer will get a shipment of A after he has paid. In the real world, both transactions happen step by step. There is no way to make them one, to link them with each other so that either both happen at once or don’t happen at all. It can always be the case that one transaction happens (e.g. the buyer pays M to the seller) but the other party defaults on its obligation. The only way to overcome this issue would be if the SWIFT protocol would adopt ERP mechanisms, or an ERP would be granted the right to access the SWIFT network, though this would not reliably solve the problem. And in any case, the transaction would still be controlled by a single party (the seller in this case). Whereas on blockchain it actually IS possible to do both transactions at the same time, and either both happen successfully, or none happen at all. This is called an Atomic Swap, and it is an inherent feature of DLT. Beyond trading, there are many other industry use cases where the linking of two transactions into one makes sense.

DLT as an accessible commodity

These are just four of the many good reasons why blockchain technology is extremely valuable to any enterprise that’s looking to digitalize and access new customers. Ultimately, however, it’s just a tool, and it should also be regarded as one, not as a hype product or a miracle cure. Our world is becoming ever more connected and digital, sometimes even unexpectedly so as with the Covid lockdowns which made us all interact virtually instead of meeting in person. But we still need to do things physically, like prove the origin of products and services in the real world, or to verify their CO2 neutrality, their compliance with rules and regulations, etc., and we still need to save both time and energy doing it. That’s why blockchain is increasingly interesting for every business on the planet, large or small.

But implementing such a new technology is not always straightforward, and new technologies are not usually something you can just go out and buy. Think of it like this: when you need light these days, you expect to simply flip a switch. You don’t expect to have to first smelt copper into wires, build a generator, put wires in your house, form a light bulb, and so forth. No, you want to just buy a nice lamp, plug it into the wall, and have it light-up when you switch it on.

It’s same with any new technology, even blockchain. Nobody wants to develop their own smart contracts, maintain them (perhaps on different blockchains), get them audited, develop an entire backend ecosystem of databases, servers, transaction protocols, public-key infrastructure, scalable silos, and so forth (a multi-million dollar investment). No, they want to just use DLT in the same way that we use electricity every day; they want to use it as a commodity. Unfortunately, it’s not usually so simple when it comes to new technologies, especially when talking about enterprise-grade blockchain.

This is exactly why CoreLedger has spent the past few years developing blockchain technology into a commodity that is easily accessible through our Token Economy Operating System (TEOS) platform, API, and white label solutions. The four areas of blockchain applicability described above are ideal reasons for every business to look into the technology and try it out for their own use cases, and we’ve made it as easy as possible for them to do so.

At CoreLedger, we believe that blockchain is a practical technical solution to improve and solve a wide variety of issues across industries and sectors, which is why we try to cut through the hype and focus on real-world applications, not just what’s technically possible.

CoreLedger’s mission is to help businesses of all sizes quickly and affordably access the benefits of blockchain technology. From issuing a simple token to enterprise-grade token economy solutions, we have all the tools and components you need to quickly and affordably integrate blockchain into your business whether you’re a new startup or a big multinational enterprise.

Interested in our results-focused, real-world approach? Visit our website for more information, or get in touch with us directly to discuss your project.