Blockchain is one of the emerging technologies that is expected to revolutionize business and accounting practices. A blockchain can be described as a distributed, encrypted, peer-to-peer transaction system. Essentially, it is a disruptive technology expected to provide a secure, decentralized, and highly transparent platform for online transactions (Jacob et al., 2022). A blockchain is a type of ledger which records every transaction in the system. It ensures that every transaction is anonymous, secure, and highly transparent. Blockchain has the potential to transform business practices in the coming years by making their processes more efficient and accurate (Jacob et al., 2022). I will analyze how blockchain technology could affect business and account for this paper.

The Effects of Blockchain on Business

Blockchain is changing how businesses operate across different sectors in various global industries, including supply chains, real estate, the music industry, accounting, and finance. Blockchain is expected to help startups and small and medium enterprises finance their operations. Often, SMEs face stiff competition from multinational corporations that shrink their income due to reduced sales. MNCs usually create barriers to market and competition through bulk production that allows them to offer products at lower prices than SMEs’ prices for similar products (Schuckes & Gutmann, 2020). Typically, this allows them to implement a cost-leadership strategy that increases customer loyalty and satisfaction with their products.

However, full blockchain implementation will help small businesses thrive by helping owners access more funds. The first blockchain application will be in the context of initial coin offerings (ICOs), which will be central to businesses accessing finance (Schuckes & Gutmann, 2020). The idea of blockchain and ICOs is that businesses can create tokens such as bitcoins, Ethereum, dogecoin, and luna and offer them in ICO markets such as Freezone and ABYSS to investors (Schuckes & Gutmann, 2020). Upon investment, investors will be allowed to own a part of the company. Blockchain will ensure that the predesigned prices do not change across the funding period and eliminate fraud. Therefore, this will be one of the positive effects of blockchain on businesses. In the following sections, I will analyze the effects of blockchain across various industries, such as the music industry, supply-chain industry, real estate, accounting, and finance.

Supply Chain and Logistics

Blockchain technology is also expected to transform the supply chain sector, potentially solving the inefficiencies inherent in manual labor, such as time-sensitive information, delivery and payment issues, and invoice disputes. Blockchain will create a distributed database among manufacturers, retailers, shippers, and other stakeholders, allowing timely inventory levels or delayed updates (Rajeb et al., 2021). With an automated system that does not need third-party verification of purchase orders or invoices (payment is automatic), blockchain will help reduce errors caused by clerical missteps. However, the technology will likely be most useful in creating a more efficient monitoring system (Rajeb et al., 2021). The technology could enforce data integrity, ensuring that agreed-upon terms are met in every transaction. Besides, it could also connect suppliers and venues using smart contracts so that all parties can access information about their agreement and confirm whether it has been fulfilled.

Growing adoption of blockchain in the logistics industry has several advantages, including higher system trustworthiness resulting in increased openness, product traceability, and cost savings by doing away with manual and paper-based administration (Rajeb et al., 2021). Tradelines, an open and impartial supply chain platform supported by blockchain technology, serve as an illustration. Tradelines, a product of IBM and Maersk, has been accepted by some top logistics companies, including CMA, MSC, CGM, Hapag-Lloyd, and ONE (Jacob et al., 2022). According to the founders, Tradelens will increase efficiency by 15% by freeing supply companies from manual document handling and poor visibility, which will help increase supply chain revenue to $5.2 trillion by 2050 from $1.8 trillion in 2020, according to Jacob et al. (2022).

Blockchain in Real Estate

Blockchain is also expected to transform the real estate industry by streamlining the process of buying and selling property and making it secure (Tian et al., 2022). For buyers, blockchain will help them track the history of a property and its owners while at the same time offering transparency during the sale process. Another key expectation of blockchain in the real state is tokenization. Tokenization in real estate is th