Colombian Government Discusses Possible Adoption of Blockchain Tech

The Colombian government is looking at ways to leverage the advantages of blockchain. A recent debate held at the Colombian Senate saw various representatives from different sectors of the government engage in dialogue about the emergence of blockchain and why other governments are adopting the new innovation.

The country's Ministry of Finance, central bank, and Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications, as well as its financial superintendent, convened to discuss blockchain’s role in the future of the country. The gathering was spearheaded by Antonio Navarro Wolff, a senator from Colombia’s Green Alliance party, Cointelegraph reported.

During the gathering, the use of blockchain tech in elections, utilizing smart contracts and improving public services were touched upon. And similar to other countries wanting to adopt the nascent innovation, regulation was also among the primary topics that were discussed.

Wolff understands that blockchain has the potential to change the lives of the Colombian people for the better. Transparency and accuracy, for instance, can completely revolutionize how the country’s elections should be conducted.

Through years of paper-based elections, glaring loopholes arose, leading to questions on the efficiency of such a system. But with blockchain, many of these disadvantages will be non-existent.

A blockchain-based voting platform can maintain voters' anonymity while tracking votes with precision in real-time. These votes can be traced, tallied and cross-validated across multiple nodes to verify their authenticity, with the whole process eliminating the need for paperwork as all of it will occur in the digital space.

Various companies have already developed a platform that uses blockchain to make this possible. In fact, their system is so effective that there are governments that have already expressed a deep interest in the platform. But the companies didn’t share further details as the agreement is still being ironed out. But improving the voting system is but the tip of the spear.

Finance, supply-chain, security protocols, record-keeping and other aspects can leverage blockchain’s innate advantages. And Wolff is among those who see these benefits. With this, he requested the Ministry of Finance to research on the proper application of blockchain, as well as how best to implement legislation on it.

It would take years for the technology to be fully implemented, of course. After all, blockchain is quite complicated. Creating regulation alone is already proving to be a difficult endeavor, as admitted by experts who are trying to draft legislation on the technology. Still, the Colombian meeting is a good place to start if the country wants to keep up with the dynamic nature of economics and politics.