Leader of Italy's Five Star Movement: Blockchain's information encryption technology has great potential in the political field

Translator's note: The Five Star Movement is a new party in Italy, founded by comedian Beppe Grillo. In recent years, the party's support rate has soared. After the Italian constitutional referendum failed and former Prime Minister Renzi announced his resignation, the Five Star Movement was even said to be expected to become the next ruling party.

The bitcoin blockchain has been used in a variety of applications, from finance to property registries, copyright management to insurance, but now Beppe Grillo, leader of Italy’s Five Stars Movement, appears to have pioneered a new use case for the distributed ledger.

Tracking party members

You might think that the main goal of the Five Star Movement is to win elections or solve the governance problems in the Italian capital, Rome, but that is not the case. Grillo's main problem with his party is "delisting", which is a problem for him.

All political parties expel unqualified members, but none has developed a system like Grillo to keep track of its members.

Grillo's blockchain system

It was clear that Grillo's previous plans to remove people from the party had failed, so he had to launch a new system that would use an algorithm to ensure that expulsion from the party was indisputable.

A few days ago, commenting on the suspension of Parma Mayor Federico Pizzarotti, Grillo said:

We are developing a project to use blockchain to encrypt information. This technology is very interesting - it only requires algorithms, no intermediaries. It would be very interesting if blockchain could be used in the political field. If the congressman you elected does not know what blockchain is, he can be automatically removed.

Of course, this is just a joke, but Grillo’s comments prove that he is aware of the existence of blockchain and that the Italian government is likely to use the technology in the political field.

Blockchain technology in Italy

This ancient country has always had a strong interest in blockchain technology, and a number of eye-catching projects have emerged in the country in recent months.

Italian startup Helperbit has created a blockchain platform specifically for managing donations for natural disasters.

Meanwhile, the Italian Blockchain Education Network (BEN Italia) is also writing a legal proposal aimed at promoting the adoption of blockchain in the country.

The best proof of Italy’s friendly attitude towards distributed ledger technology is the BlockchainLAB in Milan, the first enterprise-level research hub that brings together all relevant technology experts.

Bitcoin in Italy

Italians have demonstrated through their own actions that Bitcoin is a convenient and fast payment method in many areas, such as booking a ride.

In fact, Rome taxi drivers have even started accepting Bitcoin payments. Through the Chainside platform, end users can pay their fares in Bitcoin and receive invoices in the same way.

In addition, a few months ago, Italian regulators defined Bitcoin as a currency. The Italian Tax Agency (Agenzia delle Entrate) published a new document titled "Bitcoin and Digital Currency Transactions: Clarification of Tax Treatment", which describes the fiscal regulation of Bitcoin and how VAT applies to digital currency transactions.