Ever imagined your idle asset earning an additional income for you? Well, this is not far from reality. The technology advancements that we witness every day, and the rise & fall of the economy has traditionally changed business models, leading us to accept newer and better concepts. It was during the recession in 2008, that people looked to alternative sources of income. This gave rise to a concept known as ‘sharing’ which even to this day has seen gaining momentum. What we currently live in and would witness a constant phase of development is commonly referred to as sharing economy where people rent/hire out their vehicles, or any other assets mentioning ‘What is Mine is Yours, But For a Fee’.

Be it new or used, what is put up on the internet is up for renting purpose. Trust, convenience, and an easier source of earning income are few of the factors that have pushed the adoption of sharing economy. The concept may have reduced private ownership of assets, but the renting business has reached a greater rate of adoption, making up to the next level every day.

The sharing concept has attracted considerable interest from stakeholders and policy-makers across the globe. With technology playing a pivotal role in the success of the concept, introduction of smartphones, simple payment gateways etc. are also seen supporting and addressing the hindrances in the shared economy.

The underlying popularity for the rise in sharing is due to a win-win situation for all the stakeholders involved. Increasing aggregators or start-ups are adopting the sharing concept to its business to gain customer confidence while doing business. The emergence of such trades is changing the business models calling traditional players to relook at their working strategies. Although the sharing economy, in India, is at its nascent stage, the emergence of

on-demand aggregators such as Airbnb, Uber, etc. are seen breaking through them and gaining popularity. They provide individuals an ease to commute from one place to another and experience unique places to stay across the globe, addressing various issues such as division of conveyance costs, lodging costs, earning an additional income with their own assets, better employment opportunities etc.

Working more in a decentralized fashion, the sharing economy has given rise to humongous data generation, as assets are seen passing many hands and keeping a track of these, daily, can prove to a be a serious task. To address this imbalance of working, a new technology that has emerged is Blockchain, facilitating the value of exchange in a more secure and decentralized manner, without an intermediary interference.

Blockchain can be a pathway to capitalize the growth in the sharing economy
With early stages of a new chapter at work, blockchain can help us organize our activities, ideally involving many individuals which once seemed impossible without a third-party involvement. It facilitates the exchange of value in a secure and decentralized manner, allowing individuals to coordinate common activities and interact directly with each other along with managing online transactions safely. Blockchain can prove valuable to the sharing economy users by making it cheaper to create and operate an online platform.

The purchasing power of India when compared to its western counterparts may look substantially less, but with millennials displaying a positive attitude to change and a delay to buying behavior, the sharing economy has witnessed a surge. India now has the second highest number of Internet users in the world after China. With sharing economy living solely on the internet, this can be easily hooked up to a blockchain, which means anything on the internet is guaranteed to have a perfect record of its working. It makes multiple copies and distributes across all networks involved.

Since blockchains are transparent and secure, the architecture of the blockchain can enable yet another concept in sharing which is well-known as the peer-to-peer sharing model. Ranging from vehicles to apparels, consumers can rent expensive items rather than buying them owing to the wider choice of options while renting. This thought if applied and used effectively is likely to increase utilization of under used goods and will reduce the overall expenses borne by the individual.

As we move towards a digital revolution and imbibing technology to our daily lives, businesses also at some point of time will have to rebuild, reorganize and relook at their strategies to keep up with the upcoming technological advancements. While several companies have already upraised their business using blockchain, application of blockchain to sharing assets is still at a nascent stage of development in India. This may lead to regulatory changes in future, while companies are seen building on newer categories to increase security, efficiency and service quality.

Sharing economy is no more just a change but a trend, making it quite clear that the developments in blockchain technology can deliver positive results and what we can wait for is to experience enhanced and consistent levels of services in future.