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Infographic: How the Blockchain is Powering Our Future

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5 years ago

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The future is bright, and it’s driven by the blockchain.

Blockchain technology is already turning the financial industry upside down through its disruptive applications, but finance is only the tip of the iceberg. The blockchain’s true scope is in its ability to change the way you do things every day – like voting, travelling, or going to the doctor.

The Future of Blockchain

Today’s infographic comes to us from HIVE Blockchain Technologies, and it gives us a glimpse into the potential of blockchain technology beyond the world of finance.

How the Blockchain is Powering Our Future

While the blockchain is primarily associated with cryptocurrencies and the financial industry, the true potential of blockchain technology is much broader.

Innovative startups are already finding ways to leverage blockchain technology to give facelifts to nearly every industry imaginable, changing traditional practices to make way for new, disruptive business models.

It’s difficult to imagine an area of life that won’t lend itself to a blockchain-fueled upgrade.

Today’s Blockchain

In its current form, the blockchain works something like this:

  1. Party A wants to transact with Party B
  2. This transaction is recorded on the blockchain as a block of encrypted data
  3. This block is then broadcast to every participant in the blockchain network. The block itself is visible to all, but sensitive information is encrypted to protect the privacy of both parties
  4. Each participant on the blockchain checks the validity of the block, confirming that everyone has the same version of encrypted information to eliminate the possibility of tampering
  5. Once verified, the block is added to the chain. Once added, it can’t be moved, changed, or tampered with
  6. Now that the transaction has been verified, it proceeds as planned

Currently this technology is primarily used for financial transactions, but it can also be used to exchange information, contracts, and official records.

The Blockchain’s Limitless Potential

The unique design of the blockchain makes it ideal for situations requiring:

Security
Transactions are virtually tamper-proof. Because each participant on the network checks each block for consistency, trying to hack the blockchain would be like trying to sneak through a single door guarded by a hundred dogs. It can’t be done.

Transparency
Each block is visible to every member of the network, ensuring trust between parties.

Collaboration
Because a blockchain has no borders, it allows for secure collaboration between parties sharing any kind of transaction.

As a result of these traits, the blockchain has limitless potential in all kinds of applications.

Future Blockchain Uses

Here are just some examples of future blockchain uses.

Decision-making
The blockchain can be used in business and government to increase transparency between parties, reduce corruption, and streamline bureaucracy. Transactions are tamper-proof and open to the public eye, allowing everything from rental agreements to national elections to be made fair and equitable.

Healthcare
The blockchain has the potential to improve medical access and efficiency. By allowing patient records to be shared securely between healthcare providers, doctors can bring all that information together to improve their diagnoses and develop more holistic treatment plans for individual patients.

With the wealth of patient data collated on the network, blockchain technology can help to advance more sophisticated medical research, potentially curing diseases or providing insights for more effective treatments.

Identity
Identity theft could also become a thing of the past with blockchain and biometrics. All of your personal identity information – even your passport, educational records, and driving licence – can be securely stored on the blockchain. Because your data is linked to biometrics unique to you and impossible to forge, the information is safe from fraud.

But these are just some examples – and the blockchain will impact nearly every facet of our lives, allowing service providers collaborate with one another to give you unique, personalized service, when you need it.

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Blockchain

The Carbon Emissions of Gold Mining

Gold has a long history as a precious metal, but just how many carbon emissions does mining it contribute to?
Sponsored Post

Published

1 month ago

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May 2, 2023

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Published • Updated •
The following content is sponsored by Nature's Vault

The Carbon Emissions of Gold Mining

As companies progress towards net-zero goals, decarbonizing all sectors, including mining, has become a vital need.

Gold has a long history as a valuable metal due to its rarity, durability, and universal acceptance as a store of value. However, traditional gold mining is a process that is taxing on the environment and a major contributor to the increasing carbon emissions in our atmosphere. 

The above infographic from our sponsor Nature’s Vault provides an overview of the global carbon footprint of gold mining.

The Price of Gold

To understand more about the carbon emissions that gold mining contributes to, we need to understand the different scopes that all emissions fall under.

In the mining industry, these are divided into three scopes.

  • Scope 1: These include direct emissions from operations.
  • Scope 2: These are indirect emissions from power generation.
  • Scope 3: These cover all other indirect emissions.

With this in mind, let’s break down annual emissions in CO2e tonnes using data from the World Gold Council as of 2019. Note that total emissions are rounded to the nearest 1,000.

ScopeTypeCO2e tonnes
1Mining, milling, concentrating and smelting45,490,000
2Electricity54,914,000
3Suppliers, goods, and services25,118,000
1,2,3Recycled Gold4,200
3Jewelry828,000
3Investment4,500
3Electronics168
TOTAL 126,359,000

Total annual emissions reach around 126,359,000 CO2e tonnes. To put this in perspective, that means that one year’s worth of gold mining is equivalent to burning nearly 300 million barrels of oil.

Gold in Nature’s Vault

A significant portion of gold’s downstream use is either for private investment or placed in banks. In other words, a large amount of gold is mined, milled, smelted, and transported only to be locked away again in a vault.

Nature’s Vault is decarbonizing the gold mining sector for both gold and impact investors by eliminating the most emission-intensive part of the mining process—mining itself.

By creating digital assets like the NaturesGold Token and the Pistol Lake NFT that monetize the preservation of gold in the ground, emissions and the environmental damage associated with gold mining are avoided.

How Does it Work?

Through the same forms of validation used in traditional mining by Canada’s National Instrument NI 43-101 and Australia’s Joint Ore Reserve Committee (JORC), Nature’s Vault first determines that there is gold in an ore body.

Then, using blockchain and asset fractionalization, the mineral rights and quantified in-ground gold associated with these mineral rights are tokenized.

This way, gold for investment can still be used without the emission-intensive process that goes into mining it. Therefore, these digital assets are an environmentally-friendly alternative to traditional gold investments.

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Click here to learn more about gold in Nature’s Vault.

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