China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba made a big splash into the issue of financial transparency in July when it announced plans to use blockchain technology to track donations that are made to charities and other aid organizations using the company’s online payment platform. Anyone who has traded bitcoin on the Zipmex website will be fully aware of the capabilities of blockchain technology.

Blockchain – the technology that underpins popular virtual currencies such as bitcoin and other parts of the bitcoin revolution – has become increasingly associated with transparency and accountability because of its tamper-proof system of record keeping that can be used to publicly track financial flows and other transactions.

The problem that we have in development is not that we don’t trust the recording of the transactions, which is what Regulated Blockchain could solve. With the development of different cryptocurrencies, having an exchange service that has transparency with all of its transactions can be critical to some businesses and traders, often searching for the top crypto exchanges that have this feature in mind.

Proponents of the technology contend that blockchain systems can be used to monitor government aid, track assets or enforce contracts and can promote the type of open governance and transparency that is needed in developing countries. And indeed, Alibaba’s adoption of blockchain is specifically geared toward promoting greater accountability in Chinese philanthropy, which in recent years has been hit by several scandals involving inappropriate spending. Could a vote of confidence by an industry titan such as Alibaba be just what is needed to mainstream blockchain for development?

Image: Jack Ma, Ali Baba.