So by now, you’ve read about a radical price recovery currently taking place in Bitcoin markets. Things are looking up, and people are starting to make back some of their lost investments, depending on when they got in. Other people are simply seeing more growth and others still are wishing they had got in.
Higher Prices Are Great, Government Use Is Grand
Higher prices mean headier days. You’re bound to see a glowing article in the WSJ or two. But these things come and go. Whether we stay here, go higher, or even go lower, you have to be committed to Bitcoin on a deeper level if you want to enjoy yourself. If you only worry about the price, you’re bound to grow gray hair watching the market tank from time to time.
What’s been really interesting over the last couple of weeks is the revelation that the blockchain will be used in certain parts of the government’s response to Covid-19. Health and Human Services Chief Information Officer José L. Arrieta has publicly said that his agency is using a blockchain to “allow for faster clinical trials, protect citizens and flatten the curve on this pandemic, so we can recover from this pandemic using blockchain technology, a distributed ledger technology.”
Specifically, the agency’s new blockchain project tracks hospitalization data. Collating all this information in one place creates quite the honeypot for hackers under most circumstances, but if done with cryptography and the blockchain, it’s pretty hard to mess with.
HHS Protect, as the blockchain is called, runs a system similar to Hyperledger. It uses the chain to timestamp data, and authenticate it as well.
Should We Expect This?
The project raises to mind all the other ways that blockchain could help the government in its efforts. Everything from tracking payments made to pensioners to the most obvious, issuing a digital currency using a blockchain solution.
As newer generations take over things in government, the prospects of blockchain projects being used are brighter. No one, after all, has much to lose by implementing a blockchain solution. Blockchain solutions typically benefit all parties who take part, although the markets can be punishing in financial projects. But for regular projects, which don’t have a financial incentive associated with them, blockchain can be nothing but a win-win.
Blockchain can be used for a lot of things, from tracking rotisserie chickens to collating hospital data, but for it to do much at all it needs wider support in government and elsewhere. The HHS move comes as a surprise to many, and that’s too bad; we should expect the government to implement the best enterprise blockchain solutions. But to date, they haven’t.
So, should we expect more government blockchain solutions? Yes, but time will tell how long they take to get here.
