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As an industry, human resources – or HR – is responsive to a host of digital technology changes from cloud computing, machine learning through to artificial intelligence. However, when it comes to the adoption of blockchain everything the industry has outlined so far reads more like a wish list than a to do list.
Blockchain is a decentralised, distributed system where information stored on blockchain is accessible anywhere, any time. It is also secure, authenticated and verifiable. Across industries early adopters are using the platform for digital identity, asset management and tracking, regulatory compliance/auditing, distributed storage, smart contracts and cryptocurrency payments.
The potential for HR is the ability of blockchain to slash costs and time dedicated to labour intensive tasks of verification and record keeping. However, Deloitte and PwC have both published reports about global human capital trends for 2018 and blockchain receives nary a mention on the lists of opportunities, let alone concerns, of HR professionals.
# Revolution is digital
To be clear there is a digital revolution underway in HR and currently the two primary drivers are machine learning and data science. A report by Hays exploring the evolution of the recruitment industry details how data science, machine learning, predictive analytics and other digital tools are already complementing human skills to match candidates with organisations.
In its 2017 report, Deloitte too examines what is propelling HR digitally and notes that while HR’s prior responsibilities have remained the same “HR departments today are under pressure to rewrite the rules”.
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HR professionals are also undertaking these responsibilities in a context of other changes in HR such as in redesigning an organisation around teams; implementing analytics and organisational network analysis as well as a continuing focus on diversity, culture, learning, and careers.
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Ethereum and BitShares are both platforms that can be used to build decentralized blockchain applications. There are, however, some fundamental differences.
BitShares is a highly specialised development platform, focused on financial use cases, benefiting from extremely strong technical capability.
Ethereum, meanwhile, is known for its flexibility, with developers using the platform to develop blockchain offerings across a range of services. It has become the choice destination for third parties looking to launch blockchain apps and mount initial coin offerings (ICOs) to raise funds, and without the need to create their own blockchain technology to do so.
Ethereum
Conceived by Russian-Canadian programmer Vitalik Buterin in 2013, Ethereum blockchain technology essentially enables users to build their own smart contracts.
This flexibility comes from its Turing complete software model, which means developers can potentially build thousands of different types of apps on the Ethereum platform rather than having to create a separate blockchain for each app.
The nodes of Ethereum’s decentralized network, across thousands of volunteer computers, store the current state of each smart contract. This means that every time a user transacts through the network, the various nodes must communicate with each other; all the nodes hold a copy of each transaction and the network-wide smart contract history.
Essentially, any service that is centralized, can be decentralized through Ethereum. The decentralized nodes replace the need to have a single point of control.
Vitalik Buterin
When Buterin created Ethereum his intention was to give internet users greater control over their data, something that has become an increasingly hot topic over the past few years. The technology’s premise was to upend the dominance of the centralized business models of internet giants such as Amazon.com and Facebook.
Proponents view Ethereum nodes as effectively making servers and clouds redundant, thereby bringing much greater competition to internet services.
The Ethereum blockchain native currency is ether and represents the fuel or “gas” needed to run the decentralized apps on the network. Ether can be mined but it is not finite.
Given its flexibility, many technology startups have chosen to build their new apps through the Ethereum blockchain, using it as the basis for their own digital tokens.
When the tokens are issued through ICOs, investors must use ether to buy the new digital coins that are created. This has led to significant demand for ether, making it the fifth largest cryptocurrency in circulation today.
# BitShares
BitShares was created by Dan Larimer in 2014, a programmer who is known for developing the Steem blockchain and more recently EOS. BitShares has always focused on enabling financial transactions and, through the BitShares decentralized exchange (DEX), digital assets can be both traded and created.
BitShares was developed through Graphene, a purpose-built, open source blockchain software toolkit. Graphene effectively makes BitShares technically superior to Ethereum, as it can handle up to 100,000 transactions per second compared with the latter’s 15 per second. To put this into perspective, Bitcoin blockchain can only handle 4 transactions per second.
The founding vision of BitShares was to make financial services available to all, even for people who don’t have their own bank account. In this way, BitShares was intended to challenge the dominance of mainstream financial institutions, but also to widen the availability of financial services.
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# Digital exchange
While having a focus on enabling financial transactions, today the BitShares platform is essentially an exchange that allows digital assets to be traded, as well as created. There are two kinds of digital assets that can be traded through the BitShares exchanges, so-called BitAssets or user-issued assets.
This leads us onto a major distinguishing feature of the BitShares platform; while there are lots of exchanges out there that allow you to trade cryptocurrencies, including the likes of bitcoin, litecoin, and ether, the BitShares platform actually allows you to trade traditional assets/currencies such as gold, oil or the US dollar in a digital form.
These BitAssets are set up so that they always correspond to the changing value of the underlying commodities or currencies they represent.
For instance, two of the most popular digital assets available on the exchange are bitUSD, which corresponds to the price of the US dollar, and bitGold. There are also BitShares versions of other major currencies, such as bitCNY, which is linked to China’s renminbi. The values these BitAsssets track are self-explanatory.
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# Terrorist threats
In recent years we have seen attacks at concerts in Paris and Manchester which have resulted in loss of life. These events have arguably introduced a different dimension to event management – safety is no longer just about whether the venue infrastructure itself is safe but whether those coming through the door represent a danger.
The good news is that blockchain can help improve security at high profile events. Blockchain-based attendance tracking and ticket scanning systems represent a step in the right direction.
In the not-to-distant future blockchain driven technology could allow attendees to arrive at major events, walk through a biometric scanner, where they would have their face scanned and validated against a computerized guest list.
The technology can also boost security at the venue by tracing the digital signature of the ticket against who it was issued to and verifying who holds the ticket at the venue.
In essence, everyone attending is verified and traceable. It is all done in an instant so entering an event should not be held up unduly.
0.000 SRY