Introducing Forbes Blockchain 50: Find Out Which Companies are Actively Exploring DLT Benefits

Cryptocurrencies have only just now fought themselves out of a frosty winter over the latter months of 2018 But now there is an increased amount of progress for new businesses and institutional investment from those interested in either buying into or making use of the underlying technology behind giant cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

One of the more prominent examples of this is in the financial history and record keeping of the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, which also goes by the ‘DTCC.' In summary, the company itself operates as a book keeping behemoth, keeping a staggering total of 90 million transactions on a daily basis.

To put that in perspective, these same transactions represent the majority of the world's $48 trillion in securities which range from stocks, various corporate bonds as well as mutual funds and trading derivatives.

It's remarkable to think how much of an evolution there has already been in the accounting and book-keeping world. It was only a matter of one or two decades ago that these same accounts were taken care of through copious amounts of manually accounted paperwork.

Since then, it has made a tremendous move over to electronic, but even with this transition, there is still an extremely large amount of hours that go into the various procedures of duplication as well as reconciliations for the thousands of its existing members.

The solution for the DTCC? Within the next few months, the company will be getting started in one of the single largest implementation projects of blockchain technology ever seen. According to the team, blockchain technology, the underlying technology behind popular cryptocurrencies, will be used in order to store approximately a relatively smaller quantity of its accounts in order to test its viability.

In total, records for roughly 50,000 accounts within its Trade Information Warehouse, which is also used for the safe storage of information on more than $10 trillion credit derivatives is kept. These same accounts will then be moved over to a custom digital asset ledger known as AxCore. In the near future, all accounts will have access to a single real-time account of all trades, removing any need for database layers.

DTCC makes up one of the prominent examples of how major multinational corporations are making use of blockchain technology. Blockchain has gained a popularity among the industry of logistics and shipping, as Walmart has found, with the major supermarket chain making use of blockchain in order to seamlessly track a range of shipments from suppliers, thus allowing the reduction in the risk of unnecessary spoilage, contamination and losses.

To date, Walmart has already filed a total of 50 blockchain related patents for future products.

In addition to DTCC and Walmart, the hard drive developer, Seagate has also been making use of blockchain in order to battle against counterfeits, while Metlife also allows for users to pay out claims instantly to expecting parents that have tested postive for conditions such as gestational diabetes.

So Why Blockchain?

While 2017 brought with it the meteoric rise of Cryptocurrency, and the blind bullish run of the ICO funded projects, even while 2018 brought with it the frosty dialectic, institutional interest and multinational corporations have been steadily embracing both the cryptocurrencies, as well as the underlying technology in light of the potential it has in speeding up various processes in business, vastly improving the level of transparency and security, while also saving companies billions of dollars.

Thanks to recent research by the International Data Crop, over 2019 there has been a dramatic increase in the . amount of government and corporate interest in blockchain technology. With spending on it hitting approximately $2.9 billion as of this year, which is a significant increase of over 89 percent compared to 2018. The IDC goes on to suggest that this will likely reach $12.4 billion by 2022.

This increase in spending is also met by an increase in involvement from senior executives and C-level officials. PwC conducted a survey which found that, out of the 600 executives interviewed over 2018, 84 percent of them and their companies were involved in blockchain to some capacity.

50 Big Names in Blockchain

With a great deal of homework being done, meticulous research along with communicating with a good number of industry consultants, speakers and experts, we bring you a comprehensive list of approximately 50 major companies making use of blockchain technology.

More specifically, this top 50 consists of those companies that bring in a minimum revenue stream of, or have an underlying valuation of approximately $1 billion. As we have previously seen as well – companies based in the United States are leading the way when it comes to applying blockchain technology for their operating needs.

From cutting down on unnecessary paperwork, to monitoring specific daily processes, including speeding up the whole process behind insurance settlements and payments. What was once hailed as the anti-establishment technology has fast become its go-to tool.

Co-opting Blockchain For The Boardroom

Ironically, the version of a blockchain future these companies are building is, for the most part, far different from what the founders and early adopters of blockchain had envisioned.

While many cryptocurrency idealists fantasize about a global, public network of individuals connected directly and democratically, without middlemen, these companies—many of which are middlemen themselves like DTCC—are building private networks they will use to profit from centralized management.

The list below identifies the distributed-ledger platform each company is using. For more details on the specific blockchain projects underway, please click on the name of the company.