Have you ever wondered why many use cases for blockchain and crypto technologies derive their backing from sin industries such as pornography and gambling? Why are these use cases generally celebrated and supported by the wider crypto technology community? The expression “greed is good” popularized by Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street permutates the crypto industry and leaves many consumers thirsting for ethical use cases for the technology which will align with broader moral and cultural societal norms.
In this post we will look at one initiative of many which provides some context against this negative mainstream impression of the crypto community. We aim to provides insight into how the blockchain and the broader distributed ledger technology can be used to achieve an objective which a community deems to be moral and desirable.
The TrustChain Initiative which is an IBM partnership with a leading group of precious metals and diamond dealers provides a good example of an ethical use case for blockchain technologies via the distributed ledger. This endeavor will bring clarity between the end consumers of jewelry and the miners, manufacturer and jeweler. The broader jewelry industry which has been fraught with accusations and a general negative public perception related to the sourcing of the resource components offered in its end stage products. The plans is to bring back consumer confidence, transparency, and accountability by utilizing the broader blockchain technology. Even the perception of the presence of blood diamonds or more broadly what is referred to as conflict resources in the supply chain of many large diamond and precious metal companies poses a serious public image problem which they are attempting to address via this initiate. By utilizing IBM’s open sources technology via its blockchain platform this project strives to deliver a distributed ledger which provides access to real time data which is shared, absolute and accountable to all network participants. The real aim of the project is to balance the need for accountability within the various network participant without sacrifice to privacy of those utilizing the distributed ledger. The accountability and reliability of the sourcing of materials used in manufacturing is of substantial marketable value to the end consumer who can now confidently and in all transparency confirm there are no ethical or moral obstacles to utilizing the participants products and services.
To conclude, as we move towards a more developed, matured, and broadly accepted crypto currency and technology market the demand for ethical and practical technological product solutions will only increase. We must be conscientious as market participants that our clients’ perceptions of the morality and ethical implication of utilizing blockchain and distributed ledger technologies will drive in large part their consumption of our industry’s products and services. Just like the jewelry business the crypto technologies at large suffers from broad public image problem, and this project and others like it shows the potential for moving this industry into a broader more largely morally accepted consumer space. In this underdeveloped space we will find a vastly larger number of consumers looking for technology solutions that only blockchain and distributed ledger technologies can provide. In the end a tool by its own nature is neither good nor evil but the intent of a man is what guides that tool in his hand.