Blockchain for Social Good

4 min readOct 13, 2017

Blockchain is not just the foundations for bitcoin. Blockchain is a fundamental new way of decentralising information to form smart contracts and increase trust in society.

In this article I hope to explore 3 ways that blockchain can be applied not as the engine for a ‘get rich-quick’ cryptocurrency, but as a building block towards and better and fairer world. These are only a few of the ways I believe this technology could be taken advantage of, I would love to hear your opinions on the topic!

1. Property rights in less developed countries

Property rights is catch-all term for the determination of who owns what, i.e. it does not necessarily only apply to physical brick and mortar. The ability to securely own, use and transfer property is a right that all who are reading this will take for granted. However, it is a problem that still plagues much of the world. Mainstream economics has long acknowledged the importance of property rights in the development process. Adam Smith and Karl Mark pioneered the theory that defined property rights would increase the individual’s incentives and thus benefit society through ‘the invisible hand’.

Fragile property rights can be easily toppled by the powerful whether that be an unjust regime or monarch to persecute or accumulate wealth for the powerful. Blockchain’s decentralised application here would make such power moves far harder by securing claims to land and goods. There are reports of as much as 5 billion people lacking the proper legal title to their land. This has far reaching consequences for the world economy, not only the individual’s lack of security, as they can not use their land as collateral for a loan for example and thus the world is ‘missing’ development over this issue alone.

Steps have already been made towards this ambitious goal. For example, The Global Blockchain Business Council recently announced its efforts to develop a blockchain system for ‘efficient, transparent property rights’. This is not a million miles off, as even a basic mobile with internet connection can access a blockchain system.

2. Transparent Education

Educational applications of Blockchain are still in very early development and as such, the majority of the focus has been centred around the transparent storing of academic transcripts and credentials. This would in effect build out the idea of ‘educational passports’. This would reduce the prevalence of fake degrees and increase the trust in degree certificates. This evolution will help to build a fairer and more efficient society. Holburton School in San Fransisco and MIT Media Lab have already started to implement this.

Overtime the educational passport could cover everything from Nursery to University and even online MOOCs. It could store details on grades and attendance. It would be fundamentally secure and uphold the upmost integrity. Gone would be the days of laborious reference checking and misplaced trust.

3. Reduction of Corruption

Once a blockchain system is implemented to track government transactions we will finally be able to hold our political leaders to account. The transparency advantage of blockchain could prove as an invaluable policy tool.

It is clear that transparent and independent government bodies help to reduce political distortions and corruption. The central bank is the classic example of this. Independence central banks help stop the ruling party manipulate the economy for political gain. I.e. in the UK parties used to reduce the interest rate prior to elections to artificially boost the economy and thus good will towards the current ruling party. Blockchain can work in much the same way to remove the possibility of corruption by radically increasing transparency of payments. Thus it would be possible for anyone to audit the transactions of the government. This would make it feasible, for the first time ever, for each tax payer to track exactly what their hard earned taxes were actually spent on.

These are just a few ideas and concepts I have been pondering. What ideas do you have?

Sources:

https://venturebeat.com/2017/08/05/social-good-innovators-bet-on-blockchains-to-solve-big-problems/

https://tim.blog/2017/06/04/nick-szabo/ or https://medium.com/@giftedproducts/cryptocurrencies-with-tim-ferriss-nick-szabo-and-naval-ravikant-51a99d037e04

https://ourworldindata.org/trust.