The Future of Blockchain for Social Impact

Where Do We Go From Here?

In today’s world, widespread uncertainty cultivates fear and suspicion; disillusionment prevails between communities, their governments, and the institutions that uphold societal values. The cooperation which builds successful human enterprise is founded upon trust, but that trust is eroding at an alarming rate.

Leaders must analyze the problems they face and their potential solutions. Blockchain technology will not always prove an optimal approach. However, the degree of accountability, security, and efficiency that blockchain lends to recordkeeping systems merits serious consideration by government agencies, nonprofits and businesses attempting to rebuild trust between themselves and the communities they serve.

Blockchain is still in its infancy, and technologists, policymakers, and academics will continue to discover new dynamics of the technology. These will affect both potential and established blockchain deployments. Those considering blockchain systems as well as those who have already adopted them should remain abreast of ongoing developments in the space.

Additional Areas of Research

The Blockchain Trust Accelerator has identified the following areas of research to be pursued as this technology matures:

Digitizing off-chain assets and analog data: Blockchain requires integration with digital data sources, posing challenges to groups limited to analog data. If high-bandwidth connectivity and accurate digitized records remain largely restricted to developed countries, the potential impact of blockchain tech will be significantly limited. As blockchain technology gains traction, limited internet connectivity in certain regions of the world will exacerbate the existing digital divide and may lead to greater global inequality. Accurately converting physical data to digital form will be expensive and time consuming, both in terms of input processes and data accuracy. The latter is especially important considering the difficulty of altering data on the chain. Regardless of potential difficulty, these hurdles must be addressed for blockchain to achieve its full potential as an open, democratic technology.

Refining effective identity solutions: Blockchain solutions require an integrated identity management platform to authenticate users and maintain accountability. The lack of an effective blockchain identity solution creates gaps of anonymity which can be exploited to threaten the integrity of blockchain tech. The development of a secure proof-of-identity on blockchain will facilitate the effective linkage of on- and off-chain activity, potentially transforming the lives of 1.1 billion people worldwide without recorded identity. By providing a verifiable identity, many of the services governments and nonprofits are currently unable to provide, such as aid distribution, land titling, and financial services, will become manageable.

Simplifying blockchain governance: Blockchains are rigid by design. The creation of an effective and secure identity solution may also help to simplify protocol changes while minimally impacting the technology’s tamper-resistance and security. Despite the technology’s inherent inflexibility, the blockchain ecosystem is evolving rapidly. Anticipating bugs and errors within governance models and developing methodologies to improve existing protocols and course-correct as mistakes arise is vital to system sustainability.

Instituting blockchain-specific laws and regulations: Regulators must balance the entrepreneurial opportunities of blockchain tech with the imperative to protect human participants. To date, most regulation has centered on cryptocurrencies themselves—not their underpinning infrastructure. While tokens and the blockchains on which they’re traded merit consideration, regulation of the base technology can be applied to far more use cases. Particularly important will be to manage how on-chain data impacts the off-chain world; information sharing information, digital signatures, and smart contracts all require a framework upon which to interact with existing legal systems. Doing so will provide much-needed clarity for developers and improve interactions between blockchains and legacy processes.

Developing blockchain ethics: Blockchain technology may involve certain trade-offs, such as efficiency versus security, accountability versus privacy, or permanence versus flexibility. Though many may be tempted to address these questions exclusively through the lens of code and mathematics, these problems—and their potential solutions—stem from cultural norms in future contexts we cannot anticipate. As traditional ethicists construct a code of moral standards and considerations for technologists and policymakers, social values can be better upheld within interactive blockchain ecosystems.

Combatting disinformation through blockchain: Today it seems more vital than ever to re-instill trust in the digital information which comprises and informs current events. Blockchain-verified timestamps and geolocation can combat disinformation in the news and on the web. Blockchain can serve as a supply-chain record for facts, helping citizens to distinguish genuine content from fake news. As these capabilities are further developed and disseminated, they will help to return integrity, clarity, and trust to public information landscapes.

Exploring the intersection of frontier technologies: To address social impact and governance challenges, innovators must consider potential synergies between blockchain and other emerging technologies (such as Artificial Intelligence,¹ Internet of Things,² and quantum computing). Tech companies are already considering how these technologies will interact. Social sector innovators should do the same.

Incorporating differential privacy into blockchain solutions: Despite the significant value that collecting and synthesizing large amounts of public data can contribute to effective policy making and service provisions, privacy concerns have become a primary consideration as more personal data is captured by companies and governments.³ Even though many groups anonymize datasets in an attempt to protect individuals, identities remain vulnerable to discovery through certain coding tricks. Blockchain could exacerbate this problem by offering increased opportunities for data synthesis and access to accurate public data. Coalitions of data scientists, game theorists, privacy experts, and policymakers should consider using methods which prevent the isolation of specific individuals from datasets while maintaining those datasets’ openness and completeness.

Cultivating future talent for blockchain solutions: Like computer science a generation ago, blockchain technology is only thoroughly understood by a few programmers and tech firms. There is consensus in the blockchain community that there’s a need for more programmers proficient in building blockchain solutions. As the field grows, emerging programming talent should ideally reflect the diversity of a global user base. Blockchain resides at the nexus of several disciplines: cryptography, game theory, tokenomics, network theory. Cross-sector blockchain projects, startup-in-residence programs, academia, hackathons, and traditional accelerators will continue to attract new leaders to the discipline as the tech matures.