Blockchain for e-Government

The Detected and Shadow Blockchain.

There are several types of the Blockchain that differ in the principles of data storage, mining and other technical characteristics. Yet, the existing names of the two main types of the Blockchain (“Public” and “Private”) mislead non-professionals as they have the opposite meaning to the common terms “Public sector” and “Private sector”.

Thus, that Blockchain, which is now called the “Public” Blockchain, is inexpedient to be used for the public sector (e-government), and vice versa the “Private” Blockchain is not used for the private people and small businesses.

In order to understand the properties of the different types better, we have tried to combine them into two groups according to the opportunity to use them in the e-government and the corporate sector.

Hashing, derived forms of the Merkle tree, the block hashing and other fundamental algorithms of the Blockchain operation discovered back in the 20th century are, of course, universally the same.

The use of the Shadow Blockchain in government and corporate processes is inadvisable, as the government does not have 100% control over the entire system. Even if you use the Private Blockchains created on the basis of the Shadow Blockchain for the e-government, in this case there will be no control over such a “foundation” and there are many risks associated with:

  • Volatility of crypto-currencies, which are the fuel ensuring the operation of the Shadow Blockchain and, accordingly, for the Private Blockchain built on the basis of the Shadow Blockchain.
  • Use of the Shadow Blockchain for the black market.
  • Use of the same data processing nodes for government and anonymous transactions.
  • Prohibitions to use individual Shadow Blockchain services by legislations of other states.
  • Danger of losing hashes and transactions or getting them changed.
  • Complexity of investigations, if part of the process was carried out on the territory of other countries.

Therefore, only Detected Blockchain should be used for e-government.