World’s finance has grown in leaps and bounds. From the days of Trade by Barter to our modern-day fiat currency. While the days have passed from the first days of value exchange, the more things have changed, the more they remain the same. As our value exchange media changes, the means by which men embezzle money have also evolved. From different races to different skin colors, truth and trust have been two major things lacking in our world and economics.
While private firms usually make the headlines for corrupt practices, they stand nowhere near government records of embezzlement, and Puerto Rico is just another proof of that. Joining almost every other country in the world in the list of corruption-ridden government economies.
Puerto Rico and corruption
Although Puerto Rico is in the top half of the corruption perception index, the corruption going on in the country can only make one wonder how those below it are faring. After a popular mayor in the country pleaded guilty to receiving kickbacks from a company he awarded 50 contracts valued at over $10 million, it was evident that the corruption can only be solved by putting immutable structures in place to tackle it. While the guilty mayor faces up to twenty years behind prison bars, the focus ever since the revelation has been on how to prevent corruption cases like this moving forward. Currently, there are only a few solutions available to this problem, and only one of them can be implemented as a trust enabler with little human interference; the blockchain technology.
Blockchain and trust
Blockchain technology has brought along with it transparency, trust, security, and huge ease of use. It is no coincidence that the first cryptocurrency to scale the use of blockchain technology was birthed in 2009, one year after one of the world’s most devastating trust breaches in the financial world. Blockchain does this by digitally solving the principal-agent dilemma. Hence, there is no need for banks, courts, or a central government to facilitate transactions. By using a distributed ledger technology, the transactions on the blockchain are recorded and open-sourced. The fact that they are immutable makes them trustworthy by anyone with access to the ledger.
Corruption solving using blockchain technology
Seeing how fitting the blockchain technology solution is to facilitate trust and transparency, Puerto Rico’s government is looking at incorporating it into the nation’s economy.
In an announcement made in the early days of December, house speaker Rafael Hernandez spoke warmly about the plans to reduce corruption using blockchain technology and said there would be many meetings in the coming weeks between Puerto Rico’s government and local blockchain stakeholders to devise a workable plan.
While not shying away from the public discussion about crypto adoption and the race for the first bitcoin city in the meeting with the Blockchain Trade Association conference, Rafael explained that the short-term goal is to use smart contracts and blockchain to improve accountability, after explaining that the route to be followed is that of promoting sincerity and structures that allow for sincerity. Every corruption issue will be reduced once structures are in place to foster trust.
Puerto Rico has a rich history as a manufacturing country in the 1960s and 1970s, and although the popularity has reduced with the emergence of more technological-savvy nations in manufacturing, improving blockchain and crypto adoption in the country might be another means for the country to revive its economy from its depleted credibility state.
The guilty mayor in Puerto Rico was found with expensive wristwatches and a $100,000 cash payment. And while it is the latest case in world corruption, Puerto Rico is not a standalone country in trying to solve corruption cases in the world. Denmark, Kenya, and even Russia are some notable countries exploring how to improve openness by incorporating blockchain technology.
Denmark, through its ministry of Foreign Affairs, is looking at the blockchain’s possibility in improving administrative and political correctness in the country as it reported some positive findings a year ago. Kenya has also been advised to seek help from blockchain technology to solve its rising corruption cases.
Even in anti-crypto Russia, cryptocurrencies can be used as a means to reduce cash fraud, the most common form of fraud in the world.
Conclusion
The crypto world is not impervious to fraudulent attacks. Like in every other field, malicious actors are looking to discredit the years of good work put in place. Many cryptocurrency exchanges have been hacked, and many defi projects have been rendered obsolete by rug pulls. Still, the tenets of blockchain that birthed the smart contract have been and will be used to improve traditional finance. It is clear that many governments of the world would not want to have the blockchain close up their means for illegal rebates and funds, but for the few that do incorporate smart contracts into their governance, the transparency would increase.
The race for massive crypto adoption has picked up immeasurable steam this year. With Texas, Miami, El Salvador, and now Puerto Rico joining the race, the next year will be a much-improved one regarding crypto adoption. We have seen improvements with exchanges, as more secured exchanges like Redot.com, Binance, and Coinbase are available to traders. At the same time, there is a sled of other decentralized exchanges that can be traded with. And having more real-life use cases of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology will further make for their adoption. Do you believe we will see it happen in 2022?
