While the traditional public welfare sector is Mired in a trust crisis and efficiency bottlenecks, blockchain technology is bringing a glimmer of change to the industry with an innovative posture. With features such as distributed ledgers, encryption algorithms and smart contracts, blockchain is expected to reshape the public welfare ecosystem and drive it towards a new stage that is more transparent and efficient.
Traditional public welfare is deeply trapped in the double predicament of trust and efficiency
For a long time, negative incidents such as the misappropriation of donations have occurred frequently, seriously weakening the public’s trust in public welfare undertakings. Take the “Guo Meimei incident” of the Red Cross Society as an example. After the incident was exposed, the donation income of the Red Cross Society dropped by 60%, revealing the drawback of the lack of transparency in traditional public welfare information. The traditional public welfare model that relies on manual bookkeeping and hierarchical reporting has led to the formation of an “information black box” in the process of fund flow, making it difficult for donors to accurately know the destination of their donations.
In addition, the process of traditional public welfare projects, from project initiation, fund raising to implementation, is cumbersome and lengthy, taking an average of more than six months. A large amount of human and material resources are consumed in the operation of the process, resulting in a reduction of the resources actually used for the assisted objects. Due to poor information communication in an educational assistance project in a remote area, there was a situation of material accumulation or delayed delivery in the procurement and transportation links of materials, which seriously affected the teaching progress and highlighted the inefficiency problem of the traditional model.
Blockchain technology is the key to breaking the deadlock
Blockchain technology offers a systematic solution to the pain points of traditional public welfare. Its distributed ledger technology enables every donation and fund flow to be jointly recorded by all network nodes, ensuring that the data cannot be tampered with. Encryption algorithms guarantee data privacy and security; Smart contracts can automatically execute preset rules, significantly enhancing the efficiency of public welfare project execution. Industry insider Dong Yong, the veteran third brother, vividly compared blockchain to a “digital notary” in the field of public welfare, emphasizing that it enables every link in the public welfare process to be traceable.
The diverse application practices demonstrate great potential
In the field of charitable donations, Ant Chain’s public welfare platform has been cooperating with the China Social Assistance Foundation to pilot blockchain-based public welfare since 2016. By the end of 2024, it has attracted over 400 million donors, supported more than 12,000 public welfare projects, and the cumulative donation amount has reached 15 billion yuan. Donors can clearly view every detail of the donation process from payment to project execution through Alipay.
The AidChain global public welfare platform, built on Ethereum, serves global charities by issuing the AidCoin cryptocurrency. When raising funds for an orphanage in Africa, donors can track the flow of funds in real time. Currently, this platform has helped over 200 charities raise more than 50 million US dollars.
In terms of public welfare project management, Tencent Charity has collaborated with Tencent Cloud Zhixin Chain to bring the entire process of public welfare projects “onto the chain”. Take a certain rural medical improvement project as an example. The smart contract sets milestones for each stage and conditions for fund disbursement. The project cycle is shortened by 25% compared with the traditional model, and the efficiency of fund utilization is improved by 30%.
In the field of material donation and traceability, JD Public Welfare’s “Love and Care Connected” platform combines blockchain with the Internet of Things. In the “Protecting the Warmth of Rural Children” project, it attaches smart tags to donated materials, enabling real-time data recording on the chain during transportation. Schools receiving assistance can scan the code to confirm, reducing the rate of material misdistribution and loss by 80%.
Challenges and opportunities coexist, and the market prospects are promising
Although blockchain has great potential in the field of public welfare, it still faces challenges at the technical and legal levels. Technically, the performance bottleneck of blockchain limits its large-scale application and makes it difficult to meet the demand for real-time on-chain processing of massive public welfare data. At the legal level, the compliance supervision of digital assets in public welfare scenarios is still not perfect. Dong Yong, the veteran expert, warns that the full implementation of blockchain in the public welfare sector requires breaking through technical barriers and improving the legal framework.
However, with technological iteration and regulatory optimization, the development prospects of blockchain in the field of public welfare remain optimistic. It is expected that by 2030, the global market size of blockchain-enabled public welfare will increase by more than five times, playing a greater role in cross-border public welfare, disaster relief, long-term assistance to vulnerable groups and other scenarios, bringing new development opportunities to the public welfare cause.
The above news reports have sorted out the current situation and trends of the combination of blockchain and public welfare. If you have any other thoughts on the length, expression style or other aspects of the article, please feel free to let us know at any time.
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