Cryptocurrencies and blockchain have been spreading in many different industries, from the financial world, to retail stores and health care. The technology behind bitcoin may be helping societies to solve modern problems and promote public good.
Blockchain Technology for Public Good
According to an article published by Forbes, there are three areas where cryptocurrency and blockchain projects are helping address societal problems and promote public goods. The three areas mentioned are: Consensus Building, Free Speech, and Privacy and Data Ownership.
Consensus Building
During the last decade the world has experienced an increased use of different electronic voting systems. At the beginning they were very efficient compared to paper methods. But electronic voting mechanisms are still far from being perfect and have vulnerabilities that could completely damage and undermine democracies.
There are several projects that are starting to implement and promote the use of blockchain technology to secure elections. This is the case of the Active Citizen Platform in applied in Moscow, that allows citizens to be part of the decisions of the City.
Free Speech
Democracy can also be damaged by the growing influence of centralized social platforms. Â These new ways of communications that appeared in the last 15 years can undermine democracies. But blockchain technology could play a key role in avoiding that.
Sapien, is a social media platform that encourages free speech and the creation of high-quality content. Moreover, the platform allows users to switch between public and private browsing so as to ensure the safety of private data.
Privacy and Data Ownership
Privacy is also a hot topic around the world. Recently we have heard what happened with Facebook and the filtration of private data form its users. Some governments can even request information about specific users, completely ignoring their rights.
Blockchain is also able to deal with this problem. Substratum, is a company that provides a respite for territories that have repressive internet access policies. Â With blockchain technology, Substratum allows users to use a distributed infrastructure. With it users will be able to host and access websites and applications without relying on centralized data centres, or privacy browsers.
