How Blockchain Technology is Disrupting Industries Globally

Blockchain is one of the most popular topics of the last two years. A blockchain is a decentralized data network that contains a growing list of records (blocks) to provide a transparent, accessible, and verifiable register of data. Each block contains data and information about the previous block of the chain – for example, about when the block was accessed or modified-, which minimizes the risk of fraud while increasing data transparency and security.

One major application is to enable users to share and securely store digital assets, but going forward the blockchain can play a significant role in the global economy: Retail commerce giants like Amazon, Walmart, and Alibaba have already explored blockchain technology to make processes more efficient and reliable. With so-called “smart contracts”, digital records of customer purchases and warranty information can be stored in the blockchain, making it easier to validate the ownership and automate tasks like payments or inventory management. For example, Amazon filed a patent for a blockchain system to track goods and make them visible across the whole supply chain, from production to the end-user.

The music industry already started to adopt blockchain technology to eliminate the risk of fraud and protect the intellectual property rights of the content. Last year, music producer and DJ Justin Blau launched the blockchain-based music investment platform, Royal. The platform aims to democratize access to music ownership allowing music lovers to both invest and own rights on their favorite songs/albums with NFTs (non-fungible-tokens) recorded on the blockchain. According to Financial Time, Spotify, the biggest music streaming platform, could add blockchain technology and NFTs on its streaming platform soon to allow artists to certify the ownership on their music while boosting earnings without having to pay any fee. According to Market Watch, the global market for blockchain in media and entertainment is estimated to reach $1.54 billion by 2024.

In the past, cryptocurrencies helped to demonstrate the potential of the blockchain in the financial sector and blockchain became popular for being the technology that supports the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. But today, blockchain is transforming industries outside the financial ecosystem such as insurance, real estate, agriculture, gaming, and healthcare. As reported by Fortune Business insights, the global blockchain market was valued at $4.67B in 2021 and is expected to grow from $7.18B in 2022 to $163.83B by 2029.

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The information in this article should not be regarded as a description of services provided by Delian Partners SA. The opinions expressed in this article are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or on any specific security or investment product. It is only intended to provide education about the financial industry. The views reflected in this article are subject to change at any time without notice.

The Metaverse: The Next Evolution of the Internet and Social Media

One of the most popular topics of the latest months is the Metaverse. The Metaverse can be described as a hybrid world between the real and digital spaces, where virtual reality, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence work together to offer users a more immersive online experience.

Social media company Facebook recently changed its name to “Meta”, to highlight its shift from the social network space to the Metaverse one, projecting the whole segment in the spotlight. Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, defined the Metaverse as a set of virtual spaces where people can create, explore, work, learn, and interact with others, whether they are in same place or not. The main difference from the traditional social platform is that, in the Metaverse, people will feel a more tangible sense of presence, thanks to a more immersive experience and the combination of innovative technologies such as AR and VR. For example, users will be able to attend a concert with thousands of other people directly from their couch or appear in a real meeting as a hologram.

Software giant Microsoft is also combining the real world with AR and VR, to provide users with a 3D platform for virtual meetings, called “Mesh for Teams”. Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella aims to create an enterprise metaverse: with the adoption of AI, users will be able to create their own avatar mirroring their body language, tone of voice and facial expressions. Additionally, users will be able to sit around a table in the same virtual 3D conference room, and change their clothes based on the specific situation.

One of the most successful players in the Metaverse is Roblox, an online gaming platform where millions of people create and share their own games. Roblox does not use AR or VR but is focusing on building an immersive world for its community – the platform has about 47 million DAU. Recently Nike announced a partnership with Roblox to offer a virtual 3D space called Nikeland where players can interact in free sport games and outfit their avatars with special Nike products. In addition to create a virtual place where people can come together to do millions of different activities such as learning, playing, and socializing, Roblox’s CEO David Baszucki aims also to build an online shopping platform empowered by its own virtual coin: the Robux currency.

According to Bloomberg Intelligence, the Metaverse is expected to be an $800billion market by 2024. Among the key factors expected to skyrocket market revenue growth over the next decades, is the synergy between fintech companies and tech giants. In addition, since it is impossible to build an immersive environment in a 2D world, specialized hardware companies will also benefit from the secular growth of the Metaverse.

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The information in this article should not be regarded as a description of services provided by Delian Partners SA. The opinions expressed in this article are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or on any specific security or investment product. It is only intended to provide education about the financial industry. The views reflected in this article are subject to change at any time without notice.

The Future of Business Process Outsourcing: RPA

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) refers to an innovative software – commonly known as a “bot”- used to execute repetitive tasks that are typical for white collar jobs, such as data entry, processing, and analysis, across multiple IT systems. Like traditional automation, RPA can help improve efficiency in almost every sector, helping execute tasks faster and at a lower cost.

Today, digital transformation is the number one priority for many organizations, which means RPA is one of the fastest-growing enterprise software applications within this trend. The AI powered technology allows machines to see, hear, and think as humans do, and to effectively solve both repetitive and complex task. Today more than $200B are spent on Business Process Outsourcing worldwide annually, and RPA has the potential to take a significant share of this spend as the market is rapidly shifting from outsourcing work to humans to outsourcing it to software bots.

According to Gartner, currently, UiPath is the leader in the RPA industry with its over 7000 enterprise customers. By combining Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning, UiPath’s RPA software allows organizations to automate processes which are then executed at a fraction of the cost and time previously spent. What makes UiPath unique is the use of software bots which accurately emulate human actions and automate millions of repetitive office tasks, increasing productivity and freeing up millions of working hours of capacity. UiPath is leading the “automation first” era worldwide by allowing business leaders to scale digital business operations at unprecedent speed.

Another big player in the RPA marketplace is WorkFusion, used mainly by banks and other financial players. WorkFusion allows these companies to automate, optimize, and manage repetitive operations via its AI-powered Intelligent Automation Cloud. The AI powered technology allows bots to read and understand complex documents containing unstructured data, and digitize, classify, make decisions, and extract data from them while minimizing fraud and data theft risks. Most importantly, the bots learn from each new document and activities previously executed, thereby continuously increasing, and improving their level of automation.

The RPA market is soaring from its market size of $250million in 2016 to $2.9billion in 2021, growing at a 63% 5-year CAGR. RPA can become a cornerstone in almost every industry: from finance, insurance, logistics to healthcare. As reported by McKinsey, 60% of all jobs could have at least 30% repetitive, tedious tasks that could be automatable. Automation could replace between 9 to 26% of such activities by 2030.

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The information in this article should not be regarded as a description of services provided by Delian Partners SA. The opinions expressed in this article are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or on any specific security or investment product. It is only intended to provide education about the financial industry. The views reflected in this article are subject to change at any time without notice.