The Prospects of the Political and Financial System Caused by Innovations in Technology

Abstract

The article summarizes trends and cases from the last five years pertaining to the adoption of block chain technology in public government, the financial industry, and associated infrastructures (voting, energy, supply chains, and identities). Examples of economic sectors where the application of block chain technology has been successful are presented. It makes a distinction between centrally issued digital currencies and decentralized crypto-assets, examines the sustainability and energy efficiency of public block chain, and considers the suitability of immutable registries for official data and election procedures. It provides guidelines for creating a financial-monetary equivalent that would associate physical assets and energy with a distributed ledger value unit. The conclusion is that while block chain is still being institutionalized in certain sectors (traceability, settlement), its usage in politics (voting, identification) remains pilot-stage and context-dependent.