QANplatform Use Case Story: Government & Public Sector
Learn about how blockchain technology can improve government and public sector services.
The public sector is ripe for disruption by blockchain technology as it provides a secure, transparent, and auditable database to secure any type of records.
Read on to learn more about blockchain in government and why building quantum-resistant solutions is essential for blockchain-based public sector services.
Government & the Public Sector
Government and the public sector consist of all forms of both public services and enterprises that are owned and operated by the government to provide services for its citizens.
Public services include education, electricity, emergency services, fire service, oil and gas, healthcare, infrastructure, law enforcement, police services, postal service, public transit,social services, waste management, etc. Other areas of the public sector may include infrastructures such as water supply, public roads, bridges, sewers, and electrical grids.
The provision of these services is often distributed across several levels of government that are responsible for providing some or all of these services. This makes the public sector an intertwined network of different government organizations running that rely on the services of each other to function properly.
The public sector is crucial for improving the standard of living for the citizens of a nation and must be treated with great care. While most of the services rendered by the public sector are typically affordable or free, citizens are ultimately responsible for funding them through taxation employed by the government.
Other organizations in society that aren’t part of the public sector are either under the private sector or the voluntary sector. The private sector can provide technology growth and remarkable innovations, but its profit-driven approach is not always the best in catering to the interest of the general population.
The voluntary sector, on the other hand, is made up of non-profit organizations that are focused more on civil society.
While the private and voluntary sectors may function differently, they rely on the infrastructures of the public sector to carry out their services. Additionally, the public sector is expanding daily, and government expenditures are rising in hundreds of billions of dollars.
For example, in 2021, UK government spending exceeded £1 trillion, with health, social protection, education, and economic affairs receiving the most government funds. In comparison, in 1997–98, government expenditure was less than £400 billion.
The labor market is also characterized by a large number of public sector workers, which has helped in reducing the unemployment rate in many countries. The duties and services of the public sector are large and a whole lot of planning and proper management is required to effectively grow the sector and eventually a nation.
How Blockchain Is Disrupting the Public Sector
There are several areas in the public sector that blockchain technology can potentially improve through its selling points of automation, security, transparency, and immutability.
The architecture of blockchain technology can change the way the public sector operates and give room for effective and inclusive public sector governance and institutions.
With careful application in different areas of the public sector, blockchain technology can spur economic growth and ensure all citizens — regardless of age, gender, poverty, and disability — enjoy their basic civil rights.
An area where the importance of blockchain technology can visibly be seen is in custom duty for international logistics, which involves lots of transactions and multiple players — customs agents, shippers, consignees, brokers, shipping lines, and booking agents. Without a proper management system, the whole process can be more complex, leading to mistakes from one or more actors. This could affect transparency and traceability, leading to several discrepancies in records which could have catastrophic implications when dealing with sensible goods.
Blockchain technology can improve transparency, traceability, and security of the whole system through its distributed ledgers. By securely recording all certificates, and necessary data, blockchain can reduce delays and the costs involved in customs carrying out their duties.
Beyond logistics, blockchain technology can be employed and improve any government sector that involves the management of data, value transfer, and automation.
In the banking industry, the central banks of most countries in the world are actively exploring a blockchain-enabled digital currency to eliminate several issues. It can potentially reduce the time and cost associated with making cross-border payments and make banking services available for a large number of unbanked people in the world.
Blockchain technology can reinvent the electoral process of conducting elections by improving the voting process. The current paper ballot system is ravaged with issues ranging from the high costs, voting delays, voting absentees, and lack of transparency and inaccuracies in transmitting results. With blockchain technology, election costs can be greatly reduced, as well as enhance security and transparency of voting results and potentially increase voter turnout.
Blockchain technology can also improve other areas such as healthcare, administration, taxation, and smart regulations.
Blockchain Public Sector Use Cases
Some governments are already implementing blockchain solutions into their public services.
Let’s take a look at some examples.
e-Estonia — The country utilizes blockchain technology and other electronic solutions to store sensitive documents on distributed ledgers. This has integrated government services and led to an efficient and smooth experience for civil workers and citizens in general.
The Sand Dollar — The digital version of the Bahamian dollar. It gives citizens access to greater flexibility and accessibility of financial services using a mobile device or physical payment card to access digital wallets. It also comes with an excellent record of financial transactions to help citizens easily access microloans.
Zug Digital ID — A pilot project from the city of Zug, Switzerland, testing self-sovereign identities on the Ethereum blockchain.
Building Public Sector Blockchain Solutions on QANplatorm
While blockchain technology can bring new opportunities to the government & public sector, not all blockchains are built with a long-term approach. QANplatform takes into consideration many of the challenges affecting blockchain adoption in the real world to build a powerful platform that can improve the government & public sector beyond expectations.
QANplatform is a layer 1 hybrid blockchain that allows developers to build quantum-resistant government & public sector blockchain use cases by leveraging its amazing capabilities.
A hybrid blockchain is best defined as a blockchain that attempts to use the best aspects of both private blockchain and public blockchain solutions. Most blockchains are either public or private. There is currently a lack of hybrid blockchain solutions, which is a must for facilitating enterprise mass adoption.
Governments are heavily investing in quantum computer development and also in cybersecurity against quantum computer attacks, since these powerful machines will be able to break today’s security standards like RSA or EC cryptography.
The US White House has set deadlines in January 2022 to prepare for the cybersecurity threat opposed by quantum computers. Agencies shall identify any instances of encryption not in compliance with NSA-approved Quantum-Resistant Algorithms until July 18, 2022.
After a six-year competition and several rounds, on July 5, 2022 NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) announced the first four quantum-resistant cryptography algorithms which the Internet and potentially blockchain platforms will implement based on NIST’s recommendations.
NIST recommends CRYSTALS-Dilithium as the primary algorithm for quantum-resistant signatures — the one QANplatform has chosen before the standardisation process ended. QANplatform has already implemented CRYSTALS-Dilithium in the QAN TestNet in January 2022.
QANplatform employs a unique Lattice-based post-quantum cryptographic algorithm implemented in Go programming language to protect solutions built on its blockchain against the future attacks of quantum computers.
QANplatform also utilizes a Proof-of-Randomness (PoR) consensus mechanism that combines the best part of Proof-of-Work (PoW) and Proof-of-Stake (PoS) to reach consensus in a sustainable and democratic manner. This enables automotive solutions built on its platform to function in a decentralized manner without posing threats to the environment. Moreover, anyone can become a validator in the network using a mobile phone or Raspberry Pi.
Additionally, QANplatform uses a unique Multi-language Smart-Contract Development Methodology that allows over 28 million developers to code in different Linux Kernel compatible languages of their choice; like C, C++, Java, TypeScript, Go, Rust, PHP, etc. This reduces the barrier of entry in building blockchain solutions and promotes ease of use for developers. Developers can quickly deploy QAN private blockchain on major cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure in under five minutes through QANplatform’s unique Rapid cloud platform deployment.
QANplatform further boosts the speed in adopting its platform for building insurance solutions through integrations to the Ethereum virtual machine (EVM), DevOps technologies (Docker, Kubernetes), Indexing and Oracle APIs (Chainlink, Band Protocol), and other major cloud platforms (Microsoft Azure, Amazon AWS, Google Cloud Platform, DigitalOcean, or Linode, etc.).
Another interesting feature of QANplatform is the rewarding of developers after each new smart contract deployment and a royalty-based structure for each MainNet transaction where their code part is reused by other developers.
Building innovative government & public sector blockchain solutions has never been made easier.
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About QANplatform:
QANplatform is the quantum-resistant Layer 1 hybrid blockchain platform that will allow developers and enterprises to build quantum-resistant: smart contracts, DApps, DeFi, DAO, NFT, tokens, Metaverse, and Web3 solutions on top of the QAN blockchain platform in any programming language.
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