Your new post is loading...
When a baby boy was born on August 4, 1961, the local newspaper announced his birth, as it did many others. More than a declaration of happy news by his parents, those few lines of information were part of a long-lasting tradition -- using the local daily to register, at a set point in time, the addition of a new person to society. Seemingly inconsequential timestamps like these occur every day and, as it turns out, play a key role in ensuring more fair and just societies.
It's not just limited to births. Kidnappers take photos of hostages holding the front page of a recent newspaper to act as proof that they are still alive. Governments often require entrepreneurs to publish the establishment of their new company in a local newspaper. Beyond newspapers, a postmark confirms to a government that taxpayers filed their taxes on time. A patent helps inventors to prove that they developed an invention first.
But when we depend on private companies to manage this task, we have the potential for exposing ourselves to abuse. Manipulation of the chronological order -- as when banks process a customer's largest cheque first rather than their most recent to increase the likelihood of it bouncing -- creates a less just world.
Similar to the internet's facilitation of instant, global communication, a combination of time-stamped and digitally signed transactions hosted on an accessible ledger could play an important role. They could help governments reduce friction and increase transparency associated with important transactions.
How might this be accomplished? Ironically, Bitcoin, an idea that was once thought to be anti-government, could end up a key platform for governments to achieve these goals.
Another well written text piece if you want to embrace the blockchain in its genericity