Blockchain Consortia for the Social Good: An Introduction for Non-Technical Audiences

Decentralized ledger technologies, of which the most widely known is blockchain, have been growing at a fast pace since the 2008–2009 financial meltdown and the crisis of trust that precipitated. The reason for the increase in its adoption has not only been risk aversion toward centralized financial infrastructures, but also the realization that disintermediation of trust is a necessary condition to build resilient systems in a globalized economy where financial flows among developing and developed countries have to remain functional even after the most striking shocks. A specific kind of blockchain-based financial construct takes the form of a consortium: In this case, a group of entities can operate privately—exchanging some sensitive financial information while regulators and the public can leverage the openness of distributed ledgers. The chapter’s specific goal is to present blockchain consortia as a key building block in the future of social finance and social applications. We argue that a blockchain consortium offers a viable alternative to precisely the kind of problems traditional financial architectures face in the context of social use cases, such as matching usage and incentives when coopetition exists. The objective points to the direction of current research, namely presenting the different types of platforms used in consortia, and it speaks to non-technical researchers and practitioners who have a need to understand this innovative technology better.