Surprisingly, after a couple of years of stating that Bitcoin has no future and that it does not represent a trustworthy digital currency, the governments are interested in both the coin, but also the system powering it up- The Blockchain.
With this in mind, during the last couple of months, there have been continuous reports discussing how banks, institutions and governments would like to leverage the power and resiliency of the Blockchain, in order to implement a smarter financial system, which would allow people from all around the world to carry out transactions faster, which would then be permanently recorded into the public ledger, known as the Blockchain.
The idea behind this is that once a transaction is carried out, the confirmation will be sent via a small Bitcoin transaction, thus giving banks the possibility to verify transactions instantly, thus carrying them out completely within minutes.
However, there’s a catch. Perhaps one of the most government-hated aspects of the Bitcoin system is that Bitcoin advocates for complete anonymity and privacy for its users. With this in mind, while many governments have expressed their wish to learn more about the Blockchain and facilitate transactions, they also believe that Bitcoin and the Blockchain system shouldn’t be tolerated, as they easily allow criminals to carry out activities such as money laundering, tax evasion and so on. So, while on one hand, governments wish the modernize the current financial system, on the other hand, they are also sceptical about this, as an open Blockchain network would allow all sorts of transactions to be carried out. The only way to limit the anonymity of the system would be to implement a privately-owned Blockchain system, but would the public want to use it? Regardless of this, reports also indicate that implementations and concepts of blockchains which do not offer privacy, and where all users are explicitly identified and traceable by the government are beginning to appear.
Bill Gates has stated that: “The customers we’re talking about aren’t trying to be anonymous, they’re willing to be known, so Bitcoin technology is key, and you can add to it or you could build a similar technology where there’s enough attribution where people feel comfortable that this is nothing to do with terrorism or any type of money laundering”.
Based on everything that has been outlined so far, as the idea of privacy-free blockchains is controversial, we would like to know your opinion on this. Would you rather have a fast financial system, where all sorts of transactions can be carried out instantly, or would you rather stick to the traditional one? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.