Blockchains for Government: Use Cases and Challenges
Loading...
Links to Files
Permanent Link
Author/Creator ORCID
Date
Type of Work
Department
Program
Citation of Original Publication
James Clavin, Sisi Duan, Haibin Zhang, Vandana P. Janeja, Karuna P. Joshi, Yelena Yesha, Lucy C. Erickson, and Justin D. Li. 2020. Blockchains for Government: Use Cases and Challenges. Digit. Gov.: Res. Pract. 1, 3, Article 22 (November 2020), 21 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3427097
Rights
This item is likely protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Unless on a Creative Commons license, for uses protected by Copyright Law, contact the copyright holder or the author.
Public Domain Mark 1.0
This work was written as part of one of the author's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.
Public Domain Mark 1.0
This work was written as part of one of the author's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.
Subjects
Abstract
Blockchain is the technology used by developers of cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, to enable exchange of financial “coins” between participants in the absence of a trusted third party to ensure the transaction, such as is typically done by governments. Blockchain has evolved to become a generic approach to store and process data in a highly decentralized and secure way. In this article, we review blockchain concepts and use cases, and discuss the challenges in using them from a governmental viewpoint. We begin with reviewing the categories of blockchains, the underlying mechanisms, and why blockchains can achieve their security goals. We then review existing known governmental use cases by regions. To show both technical and deployment details of blockchain adoption, we study a few representative use cases in the domains of healthcare and energy infrastructures. Finally, the review of both technical details and use cases helps us summarize the adoption and technical challenges of blockchains.