Opening blog by Jeffrey R. Yost of new series on Blockchain and Society: “Blockchain is a powerful technology with roots three decades old in a 1991 paper on (immutable) timestamping of digital content. This paper, by Bellcore’s Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta, along with key (in both senses) crypto research of a half dozen future Turing Awardees (Nobel of computer science–W. Diffie, M. Hellman, R. Rivest, A. Shamir, L. Adleman, S. Micali), and others, provided critical foundations for Bitcoin, blockchain, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). This initial and foundational blog post, of Blockchain and Society, seeks to address and analyze the history, sociology, and political economy of blockchain and cryptocurrency. Subsequent blogs will dive deeper into individual themes and topics on crypto’s sociocultural and political economy contexts….(More)”.
Ethiopia’s blockchain deal is a watershed moment – for the technology, and for Africa
Iwa Salami at The Conversation: “At the launch of bitcoin in 2009 the size of the potential of the underlying technology, the blockchain, was not fully appreciated.
What has not been fully exploited is the unique features of blockchain technology that can improve the lives of people and businesses. These include the fact that it is an open source software. This makes its source code legally and freely available to end-users who can use it to create new products and services. Another significant feature is that it is decentralised, democratising the operation of the services built on it. Control of the services built on the blockchain isn’t in the hands of an individual or a single entity but involves all those connected to the network.
In addition, it enables peer to peer interaction between those connected to the network. This is key as it enables parties to transact directly without using intermediaries or third parties. Finally, it has inbuilt security. Data stored on it is immutable and cannot be changed easily. New data can be added only after it is verified by everyone in the network.
Unfortunately, bitcoin, the project that introduced blockchain technology, has hogged the limelight, diverting attention from the technology’s underlying potential benefits….
But this is slowly changing.
A few companies have begun showcasing blockchain capabilities to various African countries. Unlike most other cryptocurrency blockchains which focus on private sector use in developed regions like Europe and North America, their approach has been to target the governments and public institutions in the developing world.
In April the Ethiopian government confirmed that it had signed a deal to create a national database of student and teacher IDs using a decentralised digital identity solution. The deal involves providing IDs for 5 million students across 3,500 schools which will be used to store educational records.
This is the largest blockchain deal ever to be signed by a government and has been making waves in the crypto-asset industry.
I believe that the deal marks a watershed moment for the use of blockchain and the crypto-asset industry, and for African economies because it offers the promise of blockchain being used for real socio-economic change. The deal means that blockchain technology will be used to provide digital identity to millions of Ethiopians. Digital identity – missing in most African countries – is the first step to real financial inclusion, which in turn has been shown to carry a host of benefits….(More)”.
Blockchain and Citizenship: Uneasy Bedfellows
Paper by Oskar Josef Gstrein and Dimitry Kochenov: “…Distributed Ledger Technology can be an effective tool for resource distribution. As individuals and organisations explore innovations which allow to redefine the rules of access, possession and sharing these developments also become important for the future of self-determination. Demonstrated through credit scoring and ‘social credit systems’, the identity of an individual is intertwined with resource access, possession and transferability. A key pre-requisite for participation is formal legal status, which translates to citizenship. However, many proponents of Distributed Ledger Technology focus predominantly on technological features and capabilities, which might enable the implementation of concepts such as decentralised governance, ‘self-sovereign identity’ management, and trust-less transactions based on ‘zero-knowledge proof’. Nevertheless, such narrow consideration overlooks existing legal and political realities. Considering the lessons learned from citizenship, it becomes questionable whether Blockchain as player in the area of identity management will ultimately increase human dignity, or further manifest traditional patterns of discrimination and inequality….(More)”.
The Next Generation Humanitarian Distributed Platform
Report by Mercy Corps, the Danish Red Cross and hiveonline: “… call for the development of a shared, sector-wide “blockchain for good” to allow the aid sector to better automate and track processes in real-time, and maintain secure records. This would help modernize and coordinate the sector to reach more people as increasing threats such as pandemics, climate change and natural disasters require aid to be disbursed faster, more widely and efficiently.
A cross-sector blockchain platform – a digital database that can be simultaneously used and shared within a large decentralized, publicly accessible network – could support applications ranging from cash and voucher distribution to identity services, natural capital and carbon tracking, and donor engagement.
The report authors call for the creation of a committee to develop cross-sector governance and coordinate the implementation of a shared “Humanitarian Distributed Platform.” The authors believe the technology can help organizations fulfill commitments made to transparency, collaboration and efficiency under the Humanitarian Grand Bargain.
The report is compiled from responses of 35 survey participants, representing stakeholders in the humanitarian sector, including NGO project implementers, consultants, blockchain developers, academics, and founders. A further 39 direct interviews took place over the course of the research between July and September 2020….(More)”.
Blockchain Chicken Farm: And Other Stories of Tech in China’s Countryside
Book by By Xiaowei R. Wang: “In Blockchain Chicken Farm, the technologist and writer Xiaowei Wang explores the political and social entanglements of technology in rural China. Their discoveries force them to challenge the standard idea that rural culture and people are backward, conservative, and intolerant. Instead, they find that rural China has not only adapted to rapid globalization but has actually innovated the technology we all use today. From pork farmers using AI to produce the perfect pig, to disruptive luxury counterfeits and the political intersections of e-commerce villages, Wang unravels the ties between globalization, technology, agriculture, and commerce in unprecedented fashion. Accompanied by humorous “Sinofuturist” recipes that frame meals as they transform under new technology, Blockchain Chicken Farm is an original and probing look into innovation, connectivity, and collaboration in the digitized rural world.
FSG Originals × Logic dissects the way technology functions in everyday lives. The titans of Silicon Valley, for all their utopian imaginings, never really had our best interests at heart: recent threats to democracy, truth, privacy, and safety, as a result of tech’s reckless pursuit of progress, have shown as much. We present an alternate story, one that delights in capturing technology in all its contradictions and innovation, across borders and socioeconomic divisions, from history through the future, beyond platitudes and PR hype, and past doom and gloom. Our collaboration features four brief but provocative forays into the tech industry’s many worlds, and aspires to incite fresh conversations about technology focused on nuanced and accessible explorations of the emerging tools that reorganize and redefine life today….(More)”.
The Practice and Potential of Blockchain Technologies for Extractive Sector Governance
Press Release: “Important questions are being raised about whether blockchain technologies can contribute to solving governance challenges in the mining, oil and gas sectors. This report seeks to begin addressing such questions, with particular reference to current blockchain applications and transparency efforts in the extractive sector.
It summarizes analysis by The Governance Lab (GovLab) at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering and the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI). The study focused in particular on three activity areas: licensing and contracting, corporate registers and beneficial ownership, and commodity trading and supply chains.
Key messages:
- Blockchain technology could potentially reduce transparency challenges and information asymmetries in certain parts of the extractives value chain. However, stakeholders considering blockchain technologies need a more nuanced understanding of problem definition, value proposition and blockchain attributes to ensure that such interventions could positively impact extractive sector governance.
- The blockchain field currently lacks design principles, governance best practices, and open data standards that could ensure that the technology helps advance transparency and good governance in the extractive sector. Our analysis offers an initial set of design principles that could act as a starting point for a more targeted approach to the use of blockchain in improving extractives governance.
- Most blockchain projects are preliminary concepts or pilots, with little demonstration of how to effectively scale up successful experiments, especially in countries with limited resources.
- Meaningful impact evaluations or peer-reviewed publications that assess impact, including on the implications of blockchain’s emissions footprint, are still lacking. More broadly, a shared research agenda around blockchain could help address questions that are particularly ripe for future research.
- Transition to a blockchain-enabled system is likely to be smoother and faster in cases when digital records are already available than when a government or company attempts to move from an analog system to one leveraging blockchain.
- Companies or governments using blockchain are more likely to implement it successfully when they have a firm grasp of the technology, its strengths, its weaknesses, and how it fits into the broader governance landscape. But often these actors are often overly reliant on and empowering of blockchain technology vendors and startups, which can lead to “lock-in”, whereby the market gets stuck with an approach even though market participants may be better off with an alternative.
- The role played by intermediaries like financial institutions or registrars can determine the success or failure of blockchain applications….(More)”.
Blockchain as a Confidence Machine: The Problem of Trusts & Challenges of Governance
Paper by Primavera De Filippi, Morshed Mannan and Wessel Reijers: “Blockchain technology was created as a response to the trust crisis that swept the world in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Bitcoin and other blockchain-based systems were presented as a “trustless” alternative to existing financial institutions and even governments. Yet, while the trustless nature of blockchain technology has been heavily questioned, little research has been done as to what blockchain technologies actually bring to the table in place of trust. This article draws from the extensive academic discussion on the concepts of “trust” and “confidence” to argue that blockchain technology is not a ‘trustless technology’ but rather a ‘confidence machine’. First, the article provides a review of the multifaceted conceptualisations of trust and confidence, and the relationship between these two concepts. Second, the claim is made that blockchain technology relies on cryptographic rules, mathematics, and game-theoretical incentives in order to increase confidence in the operations of a computational system. Yet, such an increase in confidence ultimately relies on the proper operation and governance of the underlying blockchain-based network, which requires trusting a variety of actors. Third, the article turns to legal, constitutional and polycentric governance theory to explore the governance challenges of blockchain-based systems, in light of the tension between procedural confidence and trust….(More)”
Coronavirus (COVID-19) – Is Blockchain a True Savior in This Pandemic Crisis
Paper by Ajay Chawla and Sandra Ro: “The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted virtually all businesses, but the effect has not been stable yet. While the current disruption may present challenges to the blockchain industry in the short term, it will also unlock new opportunities in the mid and longer-term. By providing help in the COVID-19 crisis and recovery, blockchain can play a pivotal role in accelerating post-crisis digital transformation initiatives and solving those problems highlighted in the current system.
Of course, no one could have foreseen the unprecedented upheaval caused by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic which has almost disrupted and dislocated economies and ecosystems across the planet but COVID-19 has brought supply chains to their knees.
Nevertheless, there are some bright spots where blockchain is used to combat the effects of COVID-19 and aid in the recovery process. These innovative use cases can demonstrate the benefits of blockchain to a wider audience.
Organizations including the World Health Organisation (WHO), Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, among other tech companies, government agencies, and international bodies are all working together to develop the blockchain-based platforms and solutions.
Blockchain technology is anchored by its ability to enable decentralized sharing of verified, trusted, and secure information among individuals or organizations. Furthermore, it can be paired with critical security and cryptography to protect the privacy of the users and individuals contributing data while still providing provenance and trust in the shared data.
By providing help in the COVID-19 crisis and recovery, blockchain can play a pivotal role in accelerating post-crisis digital transformation initiatives and solving those problems highlighted in the current system.
However, at the present moment, blockchain is not the panacea of all the problems. While the promise and potential of blockchain are undoubtedly transformative, it is still in the nascence of its evolution.
Keeping a tab on this technology and our capacities is the right direction we can head towards….(More)”.
Blockchain for the public good
Blog by Camille Crittenden: “Over the last year, I have had the privilege to lead the California Blockchain Working Group, which delivered its report to the Legislature in early July. Established by AB 2658, the 20-member Working Group comprised experts with backgrounds in computer science, cybersecurity, information technology, law, and policy. We were charged with drafting a working definition of blockchain, providing advice to State offices and agencies considering implementation of blockchain platforms, and offering guidance to policymakers to foster an open and equitable regulatory environment for the technology in California.
What did we learn? Enough to make a few outright recommendations as well as identify areas where further research is warranted.
A few guiding principles: Refine the application of blockchain systems first on things, not people. This could mean implementations of blockchain for tracing food from farms to stores to reduce the economic and human harm of food-borne illnesses; reducing paperwork and increasing reliability of tracing vehicles and parts from manufacturing floor to consumer to future owners or dismantlers; improving workflows for digitizing, cataloging and storing the reams of documents held in the State Archives.
Similarly, blockchain solutions could be implemented for public vital records, such as birth, death and marriage certificates or real estate titles without risk of compromising private information. Greater caution should be taken in applications that affect public service delivery to populations in precarious circumstances, such as the homeless or unemployed. Overarching problems to address, especially for sensitive records, include the need for reliable, persistent digital identification and the evolving requirements for cybersecurity….
The Working Group’s final report, Blockchain in California: A Roadmap, avoids the magical thinking or technological solutionism that sometimes attends shiny new tech ideas. Blockchain won’t cure Covid-19, fix systemic racism, or reverse alarming unemployment trends. But if implemented conscientiously on a case-by-case basis, it could make a dent in improving health outcomes, increasing autonomy for property owners and consumers, and alleviating some bureaucratic practices that may be a drag on the economy. And those are contributions we can all welcome….(More)”.
Exploring Blockchain Technology for Government Transparency
Report by the World Economic Forum: “The costs to society of public-sector corruption and weak accountability are staggering. In many parts of the world, public-sector corruption is the single-largest challenge, stifling social, economic and environmental development. Often, corruption centres around a lack of transparency, inadequate record-keeping and low public accountability.
Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies, when applied thoughtfully to certain corruption-prone government processes, can potentially increase transparency and accountability in these systems, reducing the risk or prevalence of corrupt activity.
In partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Office of the Inspector General of Colombia (Procuraduría General de Colombia), the Forum has led a multistakeholder team to investigate, design and trial the use of blockchain technology for corruption-prone government processes, anchored in the use case of public procurement.
Using cryptography and distributed consensus mechanisms, blockchain provides the unique combination of permanent and tamper-evident record-keeping, transaction transparency and auditability, automated functions with “smart contracts”, and the reduction of centralized authority and information ownership within processes. These properties make blockchain a high potential emerging technology to address corruption. The project chose to focus on the public procurement process because it constitutes one of the largest sites of corruption globally, stands to benefit from these technology properties and plays a significant role in serving public interest…(More)”.