Australian based Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), has announced that its digital technology branch Data61 will join forces with the Treasury to explore the potential of Bitcoin technologies.

Unravelling the potentials of the Blockchain

A publication on the CSIRO website on May 4 2016 says that CSIRO’s Data61 will undertake a review to fully examine the far-reaching potential and implications for both government and industry of the adoption of ‘blockchain’ technology.

This exercise is expected to last for nine months, with the goal of ascertaining what the Blockchain technology could mean for both the government and industry.

It will be led by Data61’s expert blockchain research team headed by Liming Zhu and Mark Staples, with strategic foresight input from Stefan Hajkowicz from the Data61 Foresighting Team.

Benefits for global society

Speaking to Cointelegraph about this development, the Founder and Lead Developer at Expanse, Christopher Franko says that this is a phenomenon which will redefine how we, as a global society, interact with governance.

Franko says he could identify with CSIRO’s programme because it parallels his own research with Borderless.tech, a governance platform built with blockchain and smart contract technology.

He continued by saying that the platform could be adopted by nation states as a means to drastically reduce cost of operations so that they could provide a better service to the citizens of their nation.

It could free up resources so that no man, woman or child would go hungry at night.

The future of governance

Franko explains:

“I believe the future of governance will be greatly impacted by blockchain technology because the blockchain provides the accountability and transparency that people are so desperately craving. Imagine if all the political contributions could be audited at any time, anywhere in the world by just looking at a block explorer.”

The announcement claims though that Data61 will explore more specifically the potential benefits or productivity gains for the Australian economy; the skills Australia might require to become a global leader as blockchain technology becomes more prevalent as well as potential legislative and regulatory implications such as privacy consideration.