Using blockchain for charity? Not what you think!

At first, it was just a diary-style article, in which a father with a heavy heart encouraged his daughter who was suffering from leukemia to live on. The situation was well-created and the writing was excellent. Just one sentence "Luo Yixiao, stop right there" can remind us of the author's desperate cry. Although he knew that all this was in vain for his terminally ill daughter, the author had no choice. The story reveals a kind of despair that after understanding the truth of the matter, one must choose to deceive oneself.

The article is full of the father's deep love for his daughter. If you don't shed tears after reading the whole article, you are unkind. At that moment, every reader was moved. Later, when they learned that the family had to bear at least 10,000 yuan in medical expenses every day, everyone generously extended a helping hand to help this unfortunate family. In a short period of time, 2.7 million yuan in medical expenses were raised.

People were full of concern for this family and expressed their desire to learn more and provide more help. But just a few hours later, things took a turn. The child's father was an Internet financial media reporter, and the article was carefully prepared and deliberately published. The patient himself had medical insurance. After deducting the part covered by medical insurance, the patient and his family only spent 36,000 yuan on medical expenses in three months, which was very different from what was said before. Later, the author of the article was exposed to have three houses and two cars under his name...

The phrase "everyone who borrows money from you is richer than you" is often used to describe borrowing. Now, this phrase can also be directly applied to charity. "everyone who raises money from you is richer than you." The former is just a form of financing, where both parties trust and benefit each other, allowing money to realize its time value. The latter is to deceive others' kindness and overdraw the goodwill of the world.

Now, when Chinese people mention charity, the first thing that comes to mind is the Red Cross. When they mention the Red Cross, the first thing that comes to mind is Guo Meimei, followed by a series of scandals such as embezzlement and corruption. As the associations continue, the nature of the matter changes. In this way, people have found a high-sounding excuse to refuse charity - resisting unhealthy trends.

Therefore, some people thought of applying the consensus mechanism of blockchain to the charity field. With transparent information, we can know the exact destination of the donated money and understand the difficult situation of the beneficiaries. Donors can get information about each person who has been helped.

At first glance, it makes sense and I can't help but applaud this idea. Blockchain technology has been more widely used. Let the decentralized mechanism of blockchain replace the "centralization" of the Red Cross. But after thinking about it carefully, I still feel that it is a bit inappropriate.

Professional charities usually conduct on-site investigations and rough estimates of the donors' financial situation and difficulties before determining the donation amount. If blockchain is directly applied to charity, the result is that blockchain treats each person in need of assistance as a block, allowing other people waiting for assistance to make decisions similar to voting, list priorities, and the funds raised will give priority to those with more votes. But everyone is in trouble and everyone needs help, so what standard should be used to evaluate?

This leads to a paradox of whether to treat acute illness or serious illness. A doctor encounters one person with an acute illness and another with a serious illness. Which one should he save first? Most people will choose to save the seriously ill patient first. However, if you save the seriously ill patient first, the acute patient may die. If you save the acute patient first, the seriously ill patient may also die. All lives are equal, and no one can be evaluated based on the severity of the illness. This also goes against the original intention of charity.

What people really criticize about charity is its opaque nature. Judging from the destination of funds alone, the Red Cross is a huge pool of funds. The destination of all donations is opaque. However, if the distributed ledger mechanism is really used to disclose every expenditure to donors, it will still cause controversy. Because as a donor, it is very likely that you are not satisfied with the results achieved by the money you donated, and feel that your money should not be spent on these things, which is also contrary to the nature of charity.

As a donor, there is nothing wrong with wanting to see the results of your donation, but the essence of donation is to be selfless. If you want to see the money you donated change the world, then you are considering the return, and it essentially becomes an investment.

Charity is originally an act of spreading love between people, and should only be done with a clear conscience and without seeking any return. However, as a charity, it should also take the initiative to disclose the whereabouts of funds, turn the "regulation" of blockchain technology into a high degree of self-discipline in the industry, and restore the confidence of the Chinese people in charity.