Opinion by: James Strudwick, executive director, Starknet Foundation
The outlook surrounding the use of new technologies has shifted in Washington. Tesla CEO and presidential adviser Elon Musk’s proposition to incorporate blockchain technology into the US Treasury has placed blockchain and its use for state finances at the forefront of the global debate. According to Musk, much of this drive is rooted in the concern over the unsustainability of current government spending. With its immutable ledgers and transparent audit trails, blockchain is waiting in the wind, offering a potential solution to managing vast public finances.
Musk advocates for a unified information system that can track real-time payments, credentials and government resources, spurring a debate within the fintech community about the pros and cons of introducing such a tool at the government level. The idea is compelling, as the description on the blockchain tin effectively promises accountability, traceability and streamlined operations. The shift here, namely to a blockchain-powered government infrastructure, presents several challenges that may prove to be beyond what the new administration has expected thus far.
Blockchain as state appendage
A concern for stakeholders orbiting the blockchain world revolves around the sheer scale of government operations. Every day, the US government handles thousands of transactions across various departments. The feasibility of Musk’s vision is put into question simply as a result of its own complexity. The provable security that blockchain technology must offer while handling millions of daily transactions without buckling under the load to succeed at this scale is enormous.
A proposed solution by Musk is a hybrid model that uses “Validium” zero-knowledge rollups. The speed and efficiency of modern ZK-rollups, which can handle hundreds of millions of transactions daily, have the potential to make sure each citizen’s share of government transactions is intact and verifiable. The technology’s rapidly evolving nature, scaling to handle even higher transaction volumes in the coming years, indicates that this could be achievable.






























