Statistical Analysis is a way of collecting, presenting and exploring large amounts of data in order to discover underlying patterns and trends. It can be especially useful in banking, manufacturing or retail where knowing the future patterns might greatly benefit the businesses. Not without reason, it resembles and can cooperate with blockchain – a new tech that consists of great numbers of blocks that contain the full history of every transaction performed – all within easy reach and as long as the network exists.
First uses of the blockchain in statistical analysis
If we want to talk about statistical analysis we need to talk about so-called big data. Not more than a few months ago, we all have seen the first implementation of blockchain – in the financial industry. It was primarily implemented by Ripple to facilitate money transfers between banks. The main reason for that was obvious – to lower the transactions times and significantly lower the costs. The implementation likewise helped banks to identify patterns in consumer spending as well as identify hazardous transactions more quickly than via traditional methods.
Blockchain and data monetization
Statistical data is valuable and always in demand because of its nature and the benefit is holds for companies. Incorporating blockchain to the statistical analysis might lead to new ways of data monetization which can be divided into:
- Accelerated data acquisition due to sharing of data with involved parties
- Complete access to all of the transactions due to the fact that they are being stored in the widely accessible blockchain.
- No need for third-party or centralized services to manage and control the data
Ultimately, down the road, the blockchain can become the catalyst for the creation of new marketplaces where interested parties can trade, share and exchange statistical in addition to being a key enabler for data monetization. The rapid and safe transactions it facilitates can potentially revolutionize traditional data systems.
Blockchain and databases
A number of new startups are emerging intending to bring the flexibility of SQL databases to the blockchain. One of the most promising of these is Shardix, a blockchain based company offering a new kind of decentralized database. Shardix intends to solve the scaling problem inherent in storing data on the blockchain by sharding entire databases across numerous nodes on the network. These databases would maintain the same ACID compliant of a conventional SQL database but would remain fully horizontally scalable and geographically distributed. As databases are often a key factor in efficient statistical analysis, these efficiencies could help to integrate blockchain into the larger bigdata sector.
