Blockchain ledger technology got a boost last week with the UK government announcing it wants to use the technology to transform the way government payments are made.
The announcement by Matthew Hancock, Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, was made in a keynote speech at the Digital Catapult networking event in London on April 26.
“We have worked very hard in recent years to transform government, to bring it up to date with the Internet age. We’ve made great strides, but there’s still a very long way to go,” Hancock said, according to a transcript of his speech.
“We’re exploring the use of a blockchain to manage the distribution of grants. Monitoring and controlling the use of grants is incredibly complex. A blockchain, accessible to all the parties involved, might be a better way of solving that problem,” he said.
A blockchain is the technology that underpins digital currencies such as Bitcoin. It is a type of distributed database that provides a verifiable and permanent ledger of digital events. In the case of Bitcoin, it records all transactions that have ever taken place.
Because of its inherent transparency and truth, blockchains are also seen as the future of cross-currency payments.
