Blockchain as a protection of individual freedoms in a post-pandemic world

By Matheus Darós Pagani

CEO of 4CADIA Foundation

The COVID-19 pandemic heralds that a complicated future lies ahead. The global trade has faced substantial losses since the beginning of the pandemic. The World Trade Organization says that these losses will vary from 13% to 32% in 2020, depending on the optimism of the predictions.

A recovery in 2021 will depend on many things, especially the success or failure of the state anti-cyclical interventions directed toward the pandemic. With the announcement of a new wave of infections in China, the truth is that no one knows how long this situation will last, or the size of its devastation in today’s society. It cannot be ruled out that the current crisis can ignite very serious problems in the financial system. Catastrophic scenarios are as probable as they are undesirable.

The projections about a post-pandemic world have ignited a good debate. While some speak about establishing a global government, with world-wide, strict regulations on the most diverse aspect of life, others point out the risk of the rise of new nationalisms, with the financing of industries perceived as strategic and the search for a decrease in the interdependency between the nations. Among all of this, policies of economic survival can be seized to favor rent-seekers and reckless investors instead of worthwhile companies, at the expense of taxpayers.

However, there is a less evident aspect of the matter that gets little discussion, but will later gain relevance in the public sphere and in the marketplace: the loss of the credibility of globally renowned companies, which mishandled the centralized control they have on the information of millions of their users around the world.

Perhaps the most shocking case is that of Zoom. While millions of people around the globe implemented large operations to set up work schedules from home, enabling accesses and digitizing operations, Zoom became the target of a series of criticisms in the last few weeks about its security and privacy policies.

Among the latest complaints, it is now known that there are calls made from North America that were routed in China, and the calls’ encryption have been exposed. Since Zoom’s system does not feature point-to-point encryption, it is possible that the company is able to access the content of its users’ calls. And even while Zoom says that it has robust controls to prevent access to confidential information, one can’t say the same about Chinese authorities, which is able to access the cryptographic keys in its servers, and thereafter access the contents of these calls.

This is still one more issue among an increasing worry in the market related to the risk of cyber-attacks. Crime equals: opportunity, plus motivated offenders, and easy targets. The amount of people and organizations exposing sensitive information on the web has increased rapidly and perhaps in a careless manner. The black market of information has taken wind of this and it is probable that we might have to deal with a huge increase in the number of cybercrimes still in 2020, which may result in losses of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Instead of happily giving up their liberties, companies and individuals in the post-pandemic world could concentrate their efforts in the search for forms of transaction that are independent of centralized controls — of either private companies or governments. These are subjected to frauds, mishandling, and poor management. The blockchain, being a reliable, decentralized, and transparent point-to-point network, might become an alternative, able to guarantee privacy and safety to a wide range of services.

In a world where people are giving up their freedom in a desperate try to find dubious salvations, the decentralization with the use of blockchains might be their bunker in protection of their individual freedoms.

The world will never be the same after the pandemic. But will it be a state-controlled world? Or will it be a world of decentralized organizations working toward the welfare of the world peoples?