Community post
Can cryptocurrency stop corruption?
More and more banks, companies and governments seem to explore how they can deploy blockchain technology in a useful way.
Just this morning I came across the news that Singapore is working on tokenising their currency:
http://www.trustnodes.com/2017/06/07/singaporean-dollar-tokenized-ethereums-blockchain-monetary-authority-singapore
I was talking to a co-worker earlier about how cryptocurrency might be able to stop or at least limit corruption quite effectively.
If your government actually fully embraces cc it becomes very easy for everybody to follow how the budget is used and you can audit it yourself quite simply. No need to trust some 'audit company' that is most likely owned by the brother-in-law of your president.
Another great use case we were thinking of are charities. The single most asked question before donating is always "How are you using my money? Are you using it effectively?" - if the charity runs fully on the blockchain it's again super straight forward to validate what happens to your money and see the impact of every cent donated!
What do you think? Can it stop corruption? What other use cases do you see?
Replies (42)
Well I think human ingenuity will always find a way, but yes in general its going to make bad actors think a lot harder before they do things.
However I have seen people committing fraud that have no idea what they are really doing, and they get caught of course, but their lack of knowledge doesnt stop them trying. So in that sense it does actually require that people are watching, and not sleeping on the job :)
That's a very good point and the blockchain alone is not gonna solve all problems but I'd hope it cuts it down to a manageable level...
Definitely think it will stop corruption. Blockchain rids of all the un-needed fees and control from large corporations imo
I believe cryptocurrencies can stop corruption because the government has no control over it. And it is in a public ledger so most of if not all the time, there will always be copies of the blockchain all over the network. That is why they go in as much as possible now so that they could have a share of the banking industry in blockchain.
its a human nature to take bribes whether through fiat currency or crypto... human mentality has to be fixed
Decreased corruption, increased security, and decentralized earning for everyone!
I think not blockchain itself but spreading Descentralized Autonomous Organizations could difficult corruption a lot.
At some point humans will be removed from many such transactions
I personally dont think it can help solving corruption, in fact I feel like it will worsen the problem. As crytocurrency is a kind of cash flow that goes through in a split second, it will solve the problem of transferring the corrupted money and kind of helped the corrupted officials. We all know how crytocurrency can be transferred quickly haha
This cryptocurrency certainly will stop mine.
No it won't solve corruption, that is a human trait.
Congratulations @codingpanda! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honnor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPBy upvoting this notification, you can help all Steemit users. Learn how here!
I think it can help solving corruption.
It will give rise to curruption. You can't track the digital currence. This will make them easy to use.. before public the bitcoin was used by the drug dealers. And other stuffs. That is why the value of this digital asset goes up and up.
I thick Digital currency will just change the ways of Corruption....
I fully believe that the crypto revolution will make accountable all those who steal, cheat and misdirect.
From financial markets to (one day), every single thing on the planet, blockchains are coming.
Yes you can transfer funds easily and quickly, the point I like about the article above is that it states the fact that anyone can audit the public ledger for unauthorized payments, bribes etc.
True but I think that will still take a little while ;)
While that is true you can also track it.
On the blockchain you can always see all transaction ever made so if you just take part of the money for yourself people will notice.
On steemit it's super easy, just go to my profile and you'll see all transaction I ever made: https://steemit.com/@codingpanda/transfers
That's not true tho, you can track all transaction. That's the whole point of blockchain.
You can see that on steemit nicely too, just go to my profile and you can see all transactions I ever made: https://steemit.com/@codingpanda/transfers
With bitcoin it's the same, there is a log of all transactions ever but the big difference is that your bitcoin account is not necessarily linked to a real person.
But if the money would just go to verified accounts everybody could see what happened to the money on that account!
Yeah, that's very possible indeed.
But sometimes it's not only about tracking the transactions, we should always try to stop the transaction from going through, but this would be hard if they are using online exchange platforms. There are numerous exchange platforms available which would make transferring corruption money even easier
That is true but I don't think it mattes much as you can hold the people accountable anyway. It's not necessarily about enforcing it on the blockchain.
If somebody takes a cut for themselves that might very well go through but on the other hand they'll go to trial soon after
Nice piece, and really interesting question.
Cryptotech can be used in an increasingly diverse number of ways - just look at the work Ripple, Ethereum and Golem are doing for example. And Factom looks like it will have a large role to play in government policy etc. These can all have a positive impact on openness and transparency. So that's good.
But then the dark market currencies that want the opposite.
On the whole, I think I agree with you - but will ponder it.
I have just posted a piece on the future - enabled by cryptotech if you want to check it out. I'm really fascinated by this. As I say in the piece, who knows where it will land?
The piece I wrote was called 'What if the future arrived and we didn’t notice? (…well, most of us didn’t, anyway)'
I'd appreciate your thought, if you have time
There will always be corruption and fraude. I don't think cryptocurrencies will ever change that. It might be a different kind of money, but it is still money.
Totally agree with you. As the transaction is untraceable it can cause much problem . But if the transaction traceable problem can be resolved then indeed it can be useful.
Very good !
The "change" will happen for sure. Cryptocurrency, blockchain - it is like The Force (from Starwars=)) - there are always bright and dark sides of it! I personally hope that bright side wins!
the whole blockchain revolution kick-started by coins will ultimately change the world. for the better. I'm not saying it will produce equinamity but it will tip the balance and in terms of governance, you can't really lie to a blockchain and expect to get away with it. There'll be BlockChain Lawyers, working on behalf of NGO's to ensure that funding is not diverted through bribes.. I think it's the best thing since sliced bread and is THE killer APP the internet has been waiting for.. could augur the 3rd major revolution after the industrial and the information.. The Economic or BLOCKCHAIN revolution will touch every part of modern life into the near / medium future.
Yup, right there with you!
good citizen !
I totally agree with u
I agree
what will more then likely happen is the blockchain will be used to show that they are following the rules. then it will be transferred somewhere where the rules can be broken
I think blockchain will have a huge impact on prevention of fraud....
Gambling? Wagerr looking promising, blockchain Befair?
If the corrupted official initiate private transaction to erase/confuse his tracks, might be then it becomes harder to track on blockchain. (Like Monero,...)
Very possible, it's not too hard to confuse humans but I think combined with machine learning it's gonna be close to impossible to erase tracks on a blockchain as every thing can be followed. But of course there is still some work to be done for sure...
That means, crypto can do both...
Right ?
Well, technology can always be used for bad or good but I don't really see any way how it would make corruption easier compared to cash or traditional banking as you can employ the same tactics just as well...
Yup!! I agree with you.
Yes, this is why we need bitcoin
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@whatshappening/why-the-world-needs-bitcoin