4 Blockchain Products You Can Actually Use Today

These everyday blockchain products are practical and immediately beneficial. Each has the power to change your daily life…and the world as we know it.

In a world where blockchain is most well-known for cryptocurrencies and price speculation, it’s easy to forget that it’s uses extend far further than just currencies.

Incorruptible, immutable, and independent from centralized authorities—thousands of blockchain products are being developed to improve human lives.

Here are 4 blockchain products that you can actually start using today to instantly improve your life.

1. Brave - The Browser that Rethinks the Web

Brave is a blockchain-powered browser that is on a mission to “fix the web”. Imagine an internet free of ads with instant load times and complete privacy. That’s the power of Brave.

Brave blocks ads and trackers so you can browse in unparalleled safety. And since your bandwidth isn’t eaten up by intrusive advertising or shady tracking, you can experience speeds up to 8x faster. In a head-to-head matchup against Chrome and Firefox, Brave took no prisoners. Load times were up to 3x faster for popular websites on desktop and up to 8x faster on mobile.

Brave features:

• 100% privacy: Your data is neither seen or stored. This means it can’t be sold to 3rd parties.
• Complete Security: Brave Shields keep your browsing experience 100% secure.
• Secure Upgrades: Brave automatically upgrades to HTTPS when the time calls for an extra level of security.
• Brave Sync: You can encrypt and synch preferred settings and bookmarks. Brave does not have the keys to decrypt your data.

Give Back to Content Creators

Where Brave truly shines is in how it connects users to the sites they love.

Brave is far more than just a browser. It is an ecosystem where users can support the content providers they turn to each day. With Brave Payments, you can choose an amount each month to contribute to your favorite websites (or the browser can do it for you based on the amount of time you spend on each site).

The attention-based system of rewards along with a faster, safer browsing experience make Brave the future of ad-free, peer-to-peer web browsing.

2. Steemit - The Billion Dollar Rival to Reddit

Steemit is the first social media platform built on the blockchain that pays its users to publish content. Steemit is a living, breathing social economy where users are rewarded (in crypto) for sharing their voice or exposing good content to the community.

Unlike most social media platforms that extract value from their users for the benefit of their shareholders (usually via ads or personal data), Steemit distributes rewards to the users themselves. The entire platform is built on the Steem blockchain and powered by the STEEM token.

Now you can read, create, and discuss great content and get paid for doing it!

How does it work?

Much like Reddit, users can upvote (or mercilessly downvote) content. The difference is that Steemit will pay you (in crypto) to both publish and vote/comment (called “curation”). The site creates new tokens every day and adds them to the reward pool. These tokens are then distributed to users based on their contributions to the ecosystem.

You can earn tokens by:

• Posting Content: Depending on the upvotes, you are awarded a portion of the rewards pool.
• Curating: Upvoting content before it’s popular could earn you a curation reward.
• Purchasing: Users can purchase STEEM right from their wallets using BTC and other cryptocurrencies.

The entire rewards system is built around “Steem Power”. Basically, this is your value to the community quantified. The more you contribute, the higher your Steem Power and the more you can earn.

Aside from the rewards, it’s an awesome way to start reading great news, finding helpful articles, and getting endless entertainment, all without ads. Oh, and you can earn money doing it too!

3. Dent - Liberating the World’s Mobile Data Market

The blockchain-powered Dent Marketplace is a 3.5 million user-strong market that allows users to buy, sell, or donate mobile data. Instead of paying exorbitant prices for mobile data around the world or worse, selling back your unused data at the end of each month to your phone service provider, Dent liberates data and airtime in a way we’ve never seen before.

Unlike traditional service business models, Dent isn’t controlled by just a few companies in each country. It is a non-monopolized, decentralized solution that puts power into the users hands.

Just download the app, purchase a data plan, and either use it yourself or send it to someone else. The other user does not have to have the Dent app to use the data.

Dent’s power to change the world, especially for developing nations, makes it one of the more revolutionary projects to launch in recent times.

What is it Changing?

Each month, billions worth of mobile data expires and is put back into the pockets of service providers to be resold. Imagine filling up your gas tank, driving back to the station at the end of each month, and being forced to give your unused unleaded back for free. That’s the current business model.

Dent changes all of that.

With Dent, you can exchange your excess data for DENT coin on the Dent Marketplace.

Now, when traveling in a new country, you can log in and purchase a data package from a local user. They get DENT and you get local data!

4. Publica - Tell Your Story With Blockchain Power

Publica is an evolutionary, blockchain-powered publishing platform that is revolutionizing how books are published, distributed, and read in an unprecedented way.

As the first “book ICO”, it allows authors to crowdfund their projects via the platform’s token (PBL).

Publica allows authors to activate and connect to their audience early on in the writing process. Authors set the price for their projects, supporters participate in the book’s ICO and give the author the funds needed to complete the project, and then when it’s finished anyone with the project’s tokens will have instant access to it.

The global, decentralized marketplace allows authors to skip the major publishers and connect directly with their audiences. Automated distribution, management, and even resale “royalties” will now be available to writers, all without political boundaries. As a user, you can fund interesting projects, purchase books, and even read them directly via the application!

Conclusion

Blockchain is changing the world in more ways than just cryptocurrency. The decentralised, immutable and transparent nature of it allows for numerous different applications.

As these 4 projects show, there are use cases for blockchain right now that are actively increasing adoption and innovating new technologies. Whether you are looking for a secure way to browse the web, develop content or decentralise data, these projects have you covered.