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One of the most transformative innovations in recent decades, Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) (which includes blockchain technology), has been hailed as one of the most exciting breakthroughs of this century.
The blockchain’s first known connection has typically been to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, but the blockchain’s capacities are so much wider. Today people are exploring a blockchain as well as other forms of DLT to increase transparency, traceability, and security across industries such as finance and governance.
In particular, they are conceived as tools that can protect against the emergence of fake blockchains and non-sophisticated political accountability candidacies, creating more integrity in both technology and politics.
In this article, we will explore how distributed ledger technology (DLT) prevents fake blockchain systems and gives political accountability.
By closely examining the structural nature of DLT transparency and immutability, all of which are generally a good thing when you are trying to sort out the truth from a mountain of lies or uncover fraud and manipulation of whatever kind, we understand that DLT could be an effective force against misinformation, fraud, and manipulation anywhere from the corridors of power to the halls of Silicon Valley.
Distributed Ledger Technology, often abbreviated as DLT, has raised a lot of questions in 2016.
Distributed Ledger Technology is a digital system for recording transactions across several computers without a single entity controlling the data.
The most famous form of DLT is blockchain; however, there are other forms, such as Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) systems like IOTA and Hashgraph.
DSL covers the disbursement of the data management and the security; because the transaction data is confirmed and saved by multiple persons, it’s more reliable to be tampered with.
There’s a specific type of DLT known as a blockchain that has data structured into ‘blocks’ that form a dynamic ‘chain’ of steps. Transactions are added to blocks as well, and once that block is added to a chain, it is almost impossible to change. As a result, blockchain is naturally secure and transparent.
DLT can prevent the rise of fake blockchain systems in several ways:
1. Public Access to Blockchain Information
Operating in a public and transparent manner is one of the defining features of blockchain. Blockchain makes all transactions publicly available.
Almost everyone is able to look at transaction data and verify that a given blockchain project is working as designed. Because the community would see that blockchain projects are forced to maintain a base level of integrity to keep that visibility.
For instance, projects that create promises of returns mining or trading tokens that lack a clear business model and also have no track record on transparent record keeping are prone to being exposed early on in the development stage.
Tracing the flow of tokens on a blockchain allows users to know if the blockchain system is legitimate and was not created only to pump up a fake ‘currency’.
2. Decentralization and Consensus System
They are decentralized all the data is stored in anonymous ways that are impossible to be altered once it’s established.
In this decentralized environment, the verification of transactions relies on the consensus determination done by many stakeholders, which is a much tougher task than having one or more people or organizations modify the data.
In the presence of consensus mechanisms such as proof of work (PoW), proof of stake (PoS), and delegated proof of stake (DPoS), any change in the blockchain data should be propagated by the majority of participants.
This is the guard mechanism that protects against any fraudulent activities conducted on the blockchain and that the data on the blockchain is accurate and trustworthy.
In the case of a fake blockchain, the necessity for a number of independent entities to verify data prevents fraudsters from changing the data unilaterally. The central advantage of this consensus-driven approach is that it minimizes the risk of manipulation and deception inherent in centralized systems.
3. Blockchain Data is Immutable
So once you write data to a blockchain, you can’t change it easily. But this immutability is a very important feature of blockchain technology because, with a confirmed transaction, that transaction is now part of the permanent ledger.
For example, a blockchain would log the progress of developing a product or investment project, and the data would initially be public and verifiable to determine if the claims made of the project’s progress are reflected.
This immutability prevents bad actors from adjusting records to make them appear as ones of a legitimate project when, in fact, they are frauds.
Even for a scam project or any type of initial operation, blockchain technology still records the history of all transactions in an immutable way, which makes it more difficult to hide activities over time.
4. Smart Contracts, Automation
Self-executing contracts, in which the terms of an agreement are represented as lines of code in a script rather than in a more conventional fashion.
They can take processes as well as rules without human intervention. For blockchain projects, smart contracts are used to make sure that the transactions happen according to pre-set conditions.
It not only makes things easier to operate but also increases the trust available to participants because they then know the contract will do what it promises.
They say that if you can’t see the contract, then you cannot have a smart contract. The smart contract verifiability of the terms and conditions makes fraudulent actors’ misrepresentation of their blockchain offering harder.
Distributed Ledger Tech and Political Accountability
Blockchain technology is usually associated with finance and cryptocurrency, and significantly so with governance. Corruption and lack of transparency, the manipulation, weaken the cornerstone of democratic governance, i.e., political accountability.
Issues such as this can be balanced with the power of distributed ledger technology that will help a political candidate or public official be accountable to a higher standard.
1. Transparent Voting Systems
Election is one of the areas in which DLT can make a huge difference. Traditional voting systems are vulnerable to fraud, tampering, or error in voting counts.
By using blockchain technology and a pre-coded protocol to create tranvoting, immutable voting records, it is possible to reduce significantly the potential for election manipulation. Each ballot can be recorded on blockchain and is thus traceable and unchangeable.
Such a system is transparent, which means that every voter, every political party, as well as every election observer, can independently verify the findings.
It leads to a high degree of confidence in electoral integrity that’s hard to attain with conventional methods. In addition, creating a blockchain-based voting system can make voters more accessible from a voter’s perspective and avoid voter fraud risk as there is the incorporation of identity verification into the system.
2. Political Campaign Donation Tracking
Campaigns are financed in many countries through donations, and where spending campaign funds is not transparent, there has been concern.
By utilizing DLT for campaign funding, we can also have a secure and transparent record of all campaign donations and the flow of money through the hands of donors and political entities.
When cryptocurrencies are recorded in the blockchain’s ledger, it’s impossible to erase or alter any transactions.
3. Auditing Government Spending
They’re big; they have a lot of money; taxpayers are bankrolling them; and there’s always the risk of mismanagement, embezzlement, or neglect. With DLT governments can create an immutable record for each and every piece of public spending.
All of these transactions from unheard projects involving infrastructure and social welfare payments could be recorded on a blockchain and tracked and audited in real time.
It would enable the public to have full access to how public funds were spent and their use. Public funds could be managed and allocated responsibly by political candidates who could be held accountable not only for their policies but also for their abilities to do so.
4. Public Engagement and transparency were two strong pillars of it
Its contributions to transparency in elections and governance and its potential for elevating public involvement in the political arenas are in addition to other benefits.
In this regard, citizens could utilize blockchain-based platforms to vote on policies or allocate budgets Using DLT such participatory processes could be made secure and transparent so citizens do not feel like their voices are unnoticed or are being manipulated.
Conclusion
It’s not just a tool for cryptocurrencies. Deep implications for both the tech industry and political governance, its features of transparency, decentralization, immutability, and security.
By providing inherent protection against the proliferation of fake blockchain projects that would eventually trick investors and users or simply stay out of existence unless they can get support from most members of a blockchain network, DLT serves to establish consensus and ensure blockchain data cannot be easily tampered with.
In the political realm, DLT can make voting systems more transparent, track campaign donations, and conduct real-time audits of government spending as a method in which to maintain accountability.
By the very active applications of blockchain technology, these processes gain trust in politics, and the public officials are responsible for their actions.