After an unplanned absence from writing, I'm back to my routine and hoping to be able to resume my daily production schedule.
I was never a fan of Argentinean president Javier Milei, and I have even less reason to like him after that $LIBRA mess in which he was involved, but his "quest" for freedom had a few interesting points.
There is no way to tell how serious and committed to those ideals he is; after all, he is a politician, but, at least on paper, some of his ideas are very aligned with my own values.
Milei claims to be a believer in the potential of cryptocurrency and has been and advocate for its integration in the country's economy and overall political structure. One of his ideas was putting Argentina's spending records on the blockchain, making them easily accessible to just about anyone and that's something I support.
I don't know if it's viable to reveal 100% of a country's spending because things like national security could be compromised but I think that's a start.
I don't follow Milei closely; therefore, I have no idea whether he took or plans to take any action to fulfill his promise, but it's good to know that this idea is spreading around. Also, regardless of what he does, there are other countries already taking action. An Indian town, for example, recently made an interesting move in that sense.
Digitalized land ownership
The Dantewada District Administration of Chhattisgarh partnered up with blockchain startup LegitDoc by Zupple Labs and on March 6 the town announced it had digitized over 700,000 land records via the Office of Land Records. The blockchain of choice was Avalanche.
To further support the population's access to the records, the government also installed kiosks around town so citizens and government officers can access land information. To ensure the privacy of sensitive information, prior authorization is required for the application.
This initiative is a huge step forward towards trust and transparency in land ownership, which, for decades, has been a very fragile subject.
Documents get lost, tempered with, or straight-up forged all the time, and vulnerable people are often victims of fraud and land grabs.
That's something that happens all the time in Brazil, where I live, and I'm sure the same goes for many, if not all, countries in the world.
The immutable nature of blockchain is an easy and transparent way for anyone to prove ownership over a piece of land, which leads to many direct and indirect benefits such as cutting middlemen and helping to avoid lengthy and costly legal battles.
As an enthusiast of blockchain and tokenization, I'm always glad to see this technology being used to address real-world problems rather than mere speculation.
Final thoughts
Land ownership has always been fragile and prone to all kinds of fraud but blockchain is helping to turn things around. This technology adds transparency and immutability to the mix, helping to protect land owners from fraud, land grabs, costly legal battles and shady middlemen while providing easy access to records for citizens and government officers at the same time.
Amidst all the chaos and meme coin rug pulls, it's satisfying to see that some people are leveraging blockchain technologies to actually solve problems and make our lives a little easier.