Blockchain for everything... and for everyone

We all know this

As we all know, Blockchain technology has been closely associated with the so-called 'decentralized economy'. Indeed, this technology is behind the cryptocurrency projects and allows that the operations made with them do not need a central entity to be validated. Thus, the control of validations is no longer in the hands of a single agency but in that of a network of validating nodes.

This may also imply the immutability of operations. For better or worse, a validated transaction remains in the blockchain, and it is possible to review the history of movements and transactions at any time. This gives us total transparency of transactions and makes it extremely difficult for anyone who wants to change or manipulate any information in the chain. Nothing new up to this point.

But...

But I would like to highlight the previous paragraphs without thinking about cryptocurrencies or about a decentralized economy. Let's think for a while about Blockchain as a powerful technology without reducing its possibilities to the world of cryptocurrencies.

Once again, blockchain allows no centralized control, transparency, and difficulties to be manipulated / immutability. Three fascinating characteristics for its application to other fields.

In fact, blockchain technology can be applied (and it is being applied), to several aspects of our lives and to multiple services that we use in our everyday activities: control over ownership registries, unalienable royalty payments, secure data storage, tracking of the food production process, monitoring of the industrial supply chains, etc. as you probably know.

But in my case, there is one application of blockchain technology that particularly interests me: it can be used to improve a democratic governance systems.

As well as it can be used for a decentralized economy, it can be used for a decentralized governance systems that are close to a direct democracy model. This is really exciting because it can completely change how we politically organize ourselves.

Work in progess

For several years, I have been involved in a startup dedicated to blockchain based voting and the use of NFT for the verification of unique identities.

After more than five years it has managed to obtain the support of a large technology company, so we can stop calling it a 'startup', although its founders continue with the same business philosophy as when they started.

From the university, I often support and advise them on a methodological (scientific legitimacy of a vote) and conceptual (democratic governance) level, and they amaze me with their inventions and technological developments.

In fact, I think it's a really powerful thing to apply blockchain technology to voting.

There is no chance of someone deceased or someone who is not who he says he is voting. Sadly, this can and does happen in traditional voting systems.

There is no need to guard the chain of custody, and it avoids the related costs. For example, the transport of the ballots in sealed vehicles, but that we do not know what happens inside them.

The counting is instantaneous and error-free. This is something that many losing candidates claim: failures or manipulation of the recounts. By doing so, they force a recount (and the related costs that have be borne with public money). What's worse: sometimes they are right and there have been errors in the recounts or suspicions of manipulation. Poor democracies, I would call them.

Applying blockchain technology, there are no recounting errors and there is no chance of manipulating votes. Everything is there, transparent and instantly.

Moreover: a blockchain-based voting system can be easilly applied to multiple scales: a community of neighbors, a stockholders' meeting, a sports club members or a national referendum.

The best part of it is that it allows an expanded and more inclusive participation, which is the basis of a healthy democracy. In example, an elderly person or a person in a wheelchair does not have to move to participate. Or if someone is on a trip, he or she does not have to be excluded because he or she cannot be physically at the place where the vote is to be held, etc.

In short, if someone has the right to vote, he or she has more chances of exercising that right.

Therefore, Blockchain technology is not only useful for the decentralization of the economy by applying it to cryptocurrencies, but it can completely alter the way we organize ourselves socially, in politics and in business.

That fact can change for the better, not only the economy, but the whole world and the lives of all human beings.

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