Cryptocurrency gets all the attention. What often gets overlooked is the power of blockchain.
This is something that is still in its infancy. However, as we often discuss, is crucial for the future. The old client-server model is being disrupted, although that is not going to vanish anytime soon.
Emerging is a new database structure that provides transparency, censorship resistance, and non-ownership. It can be thought as communal. This is crucial for economic models that will be developed in the future.
Leaving the monetary aspects aside, there is great value simply as a database. This is what blockchain is at its core. We have decentralized networks that enable people to add data. From here, a host of applications can be developed.
This is something that is getting some attention. In fact, we see two major power centers, Wall Street and Washington starting to embrace the idea of these databases.
In this article we will cover some of the recent happenings along with a proposed idea.
Blockchain Being Used By Washington And Wall Street
The tokenization of everything is underway. However, not everything that is involved with blockchain requires tokenization. Actually, we are looking at the opposite. If we take a data first approach, we can see how everything springs from this.
We could be looking at blockchain being a central component to database management, especially when it comes to government. After all, much of the data governments have is public. This means that having it controlled by the government IT department is counterintuitive.
Enter blockchain.
The Trump Administration made a lot of noise with its revamping of USAID. This is something that is ongoing, with one of the proposals to turn to blockchain. The idea is to integrate USAID with blockchain to boost accountability and provide more transparency.
According to a document circulating within diplomatic circles, officials are advocating for blockchain to underpin a new procurement system aimed at strengthening transparency and oversight in how USAID distributes funds.
The proposed plan suggests leveraging blockchain to secure and track disbursements, though specifics regarding the technology's architecture—whether public, private or hybrid—are yet to be disclosed.
Governments along with certain players long have utilized government's inefficiencies and lack of transparency for personal gain. In the United States we have large entities such as the Pentagon unable to pass an audit. In other words, they have no idea where public funds go. This is likely replicated by most countries.
It is almost funny. Michael Franzese, the noted member of the Colombo crime family, said on his podcast that going into the mafia isn't worth it anymore. Instead, just go into business with the government where crime is legal. I guess it is far easier to shakedown the taxpayers. Corporations, NGO, and other organizations learned this trick long ago, probably led by the military industrial complex.
To me, Boeing seems like the poster child for this.
Wall Street Giants Steeping In
Fidelity is one of the largest entities in the world, at least with regard to assets under management.
It recently filed a prospectus with the SEC to have a Treasury money market fund on Ethereum. This will use the blockchain to track ownership.
Fidelity’s innovation lies in its onchain share class, which will use the Ethereum blockchain as a secondary ledger to track ownership. Daily reconciliations will ensure consistency between traditional book-entry records and blockchain data. Shareholders will access balances via blockchain wallets managed by Fidelity’s transfer agent, though private keys will remain under the company’s control to mitigate security risks.
Notice the concept here. The blockchain will be a secondary ledger which is used to reconcile the records. The public database is the proof of record, usurping the traditional methods. Naturally, the ability to manipulate the blockchain transactions is near impossible.
This is the latest in a line of firms seeking to take traditional assets and tie them to blockchain.
This move places Fidelity among traditional finance giants like Blackrock and Franklin Templeton redefining real-world-asset (RWA) tokenization. The filing acknowledges risks, including potential blockchain network delays, regulatory shifts, and cybersecurity threats, but emphasizes Ethereum’s proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism as a safeguard.
Here we see the firm still maintaining control. The linked article mentions how the keys are going to held by Fidelity. This is no surprise since we know Wall Street is not about to give up the power it wields.
This is taking place on top of Apollo Group offering credit securities across a number of blockchains. Here we see a number of EVMs chains being used, expanding the reach. This is important since it serves as a basis for which other firms are building upon.
The Apollo Diversified Credit Securitize Fund (ACRED) will provide exposure to Apollo’s global credit strategy, which includes corporate direct lending and asset-backed credit. The fund is available on Aptos, Avalanche, Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, and the blockchain interoperability network Ink.
Democratize Data
Data democratization is something I wrote about for much of the past year. With the rapid acceleration of AI, the need for communal data is crucial. Wall Street firms, nor Washington, are not looking at things from this perspective.
However, they are showing how important transparent and immutability is. This comes at a time when confidence in government is collapsing. We are seeing dire situations cropping up across the planet, bringing about major changes as we head into the early 2030s.
The use of blockchain will grow outside of cryptocurrency. While this is expected to explode also, the value provided by these databases is feeding into the shift that is taking place. Naturally, things are moving rather slowly overall which is in line with how humans operate. The resistance to change is always seen with new technology.