Jio, Airtel and Vodafone Bets Blockchain to Cut Costs, Push Revenue

From last year onwards the Bitcoin fever had made many “Netizens” Crypto Billionaire, making blockchain technology the most secure and safe to use. While miners and traders were busy with digital cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, Etherium, Ripple etc, the top telecom operators such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Reliance Jio Infocomm were focusing on developing the blockchain technology-based platforms to create new revenue streams and lower operational costs amid pressure on revenue and margins.

For few never heard of blockchain technology here’s what it is about, A blockchain is a digitized, decentralized, public ledger of all cryptocurrency transactions. The blockchain ledger helps to provide transparency for transactions. Although many bitcoin transactions are in some ways anonymous, the blockchain ledger can link individuals and companies to bitcoin purchases and ownership by allowing individual parties, called miners, to process payments and verify transactions.

Vodafone India is with working with IBM and are already at the proof of concept (PoC) stage with blockchain technology, Airtel is currently involved in initial trials. Reliance Jio has set up an engineering team to work on blockchain technology with the goal of developing new use-cases and applications.

It is also believed that Jio is also using startup accelerator Jio-GenNext to bring blockchain-related start-ups on board for development. However, not a single telco is looking at introducing cryptocurrency using the blockchain technology in the country, the executives said. There has been speculation that Jio is planning its own cryptocurrency, JioCoin.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 22, 2018 06:38 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).