Blockchain in government: Benefits and implications of distributed ledger technology for information sharing

Abstract

Blockchain refers to a range of general purpose technologies to exchange information and transact digital assets in distributed networks. The core question addressed in this paper is whether blockchain technology will lead to innovation and transformation of governmental processes. To address this questions we present a critical assessment of the often exaggerated benefits of blockchain technology found in the literature and discuss their implications for governmental organizations and processes. We plea for a shift from a technology-driven to need-driven approach in which blockchain applications are customized to ensure a fit with requirements of administrative processes and in which the administrative processes are changed to benefit from the technology. Having sound governance models are found to be a conditions for realizing benefits. Based on a critical assessment we offer directions for further research into the potential benefits of BC applications in e-government and the role of governance of BC architectures and applications to comply with societal needs and public values. Highlights • Blockchain implications and the need for institutional changes and transformations are not well-understood • Potential benefits of blockchain range from technical to economic and strategic • Implementation and adoption determines if the possible benefits can be realized • Governments has a dual responsibility: governance by BC and BC governance • Blockchain changes information stewardship

Accounting and Auditing at the Time of Blockchain Technology: A Research Agenda

“…BT can carry not only transactional data in real time but can also carry a programmed version of human action. These take the form of socalled smart contracts, which encode relevant terms into a blockchain and execute automatically when predefined conditions are met (Coyne and McMickle 2017;Ølnes et al 2017;KPMG 2018a;Rozario and Vasarhelyi 2018). Smart contracts digitally facilitate, verify, control and enforce transactions.…”

“…More precisely, BT has been forecasted to be a game-changer in various industries, with the potential to transform contemporary business models and the structure of markets (Deloitte 2016a; Casey and Vigna 2018a). While BT has already begun to demonstrate its disruptive influence on different industries such as financial services, agriculture, trade, healthcare, transportation as well as government (Ølnes et al 2017;Tan and Low 2017;Yermack 2017), it is also expected to strongly impact on the accounting and auditing profession in the future (Coyne and McMickle 2017;CPA and AICPA 2017;Dai and Vasarhelyi 2017;Kokina et al 2017;Rückeshäuser 2017;Yermack 2017). Dai and Vasarhelyi (2017: 5-6) argue that ' [b]lockchain's functions of protecting data integrity, instant sharing of necessary information, as well as programmable and automatic controls of processes, could facilitate the development of a new accounting ecosystem' .…”

Algorithmic Analysis of Blockchain Efficiency with Communication Delay

“…It was invented to serve as the public transaction ledger of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin in 2008 [13], in which the need for a trusted third party is avoided: instead, this digital currency is based on the concept of 'proof of work' allowing users to execute payments by digitally signing their transactions using hashes through a distributed time-stamping service [15]. Because of its resistance to modifications, decentralized consensus, and proved robustness for supporting cryptocurrency transactions, this technology is seen to have great potential for new uses in other domains, including financial services [7,17], distributed data models [3], markets [16], government systems [9,14], healthcare [8,1,11], IoT [10], and video games [12]. As the blockchain technology matures, it is expected to change economics, business, and society [2] in the years to come.…”

Blockchain-Based Electronic Voting System for Elections in Turkey

“…Also, it is impossible to change an information in a block since it is discerned by other blocks which have whole data. Consequently, Blockchain increases the security of information by keeping the entire data in all blocks, and removes the need for an official center to provide a secure election [5]. As mentioned before, counting votes and making election results publicly available takes considerable time.…”