First Government Survey Recorded In The Blockchain

Today we launched the first government survey to have its results recorded in the Bitcoin blockchain. This marks a small but significant milestone in the mainstream adoption of blockchain technology. The State of Connecticut asked our team to survey Connecticut’s top 200 technology companies to learn how the State can help them retain talent and grow their workforce. Tierion was used to collect survey responses and generate a blockchain receipt that can be used to verify the timestamp and content of each response. Why does this matter? In this instance, the data being collected isn’t controversial. However, survey data is frequently used by government officials to justify major decisions such as moving a baseball stadium or approving a large spending project. Disputes over the results can happen between competing interests and currently the public has no way of checking the data or verifying the results. Generating a blockchain receipt for each survey response makes it possible for anyone to verify the data without relying on a trusted third party.  Auditing each result can be done by verifying the receipt. Maybe someday most government records and official data will be verifiable by checking the blockchain.  This is part of a larger vision that inspired us to create Tierion. For now, we’re happy with this small victory to introduce blockchain technology to the State of Connecticut and help them to explore new possibilities.