Can Bitcoin Hold Politicians to Their Promises?

With the U.S. elections now behind us, we’re left to assess what the candidates stood for—and one surprising theme has been the push for Bitcoin and blockchain technology. Imagine a future where campaign promises aren’t just words but commitments you can actually track. This article explores how Bitcoin could be more than a campaign buzzword, giving voters a way to hold elected leaders accountable by offering a transparent look into fulfilling their promises.

System for Registering Political Proposals Based on Bitcoin

In the current landscape of blockchain technology, most systems for political proposals and voting have been developed on second and third-generation platforms that offer advanced features and flexibility. This trend has fostered the perception that Bitcoin’s network, with its steadfast focus on security and decentralization, is unsuitable for such applications. However, despite the deactivation of OP_CAT, there remains significant potential in Bitcoin’s base layer. By leveraging the OP_RETURN field, we can immutably record political proposals, enabling the creation of a system that not only promotes transparency and accountability but also highlights Bitcoin's disruptive role in the political realm. This approach challenges the notion that only newer blockchains can tackle issues like political proposals, revealing a unique opportunity to innovate within Bitcoin's ecosystem.

To date, no formal system exists that registers proposals from politicians directly on Bitcoin (using the OP_RETURN field), although several attempts have been made to apply blockchain technology to improve transparency and accountability in politics. Projects like BitCongress aimed to use blockchain for voting and proposal registration, but they did not succeed. Others have explored the idea of making political campaigns more transparent or implementing voting systems on blockchain, but these efforts remain experimental. This leaves an open space for innovation, allowing for the creation of a system that immutably records political promises on Bitcoin.

Below, we introduce the Political Proposal Recording System Based on Bitcoin (PPR-BTC), an approach that enables the recording and auditing of both campaign promises and expenses.

Objective

To record campaign promises and the expenses associated with campaign contributions on the Bitcoin blockchain, ensuring transparency and accountability from politicians.

Key Components of the System:

• Proposal Registration in OP_RETURN: Political proposals are stored directly on the blockchain using the OP_RETURN field.
• A summary of the proposal or a hash (SHA-256) of the complete proposal is registered if it is too lengthy.
• Campaign Contributions: Each politician will have a specific Bitcoin address to receive campaign contributions.
• Contributions are recorded on the blockchain via transactions with OP_RETURN, detailing the amount received (in the currency specified at the time of the transaction) and the purpose of the expenditure. This allows for clear tracking of how campaigns are financed.
• Expense Registration: Every time a campaign-related expense is made, a new OP_RETURN transaction is created that describes the expenditure, the date, and the amount, as well as a receipt that can be a hash of the digital receipt.
• This ensures that citizens can audit how the money raised for the campaign is being utilized.
• Additionally, the UTXO system can be leveraged to accurately identify the coherence between specific contributions and expenditures. In this regard, the system has a clear advantage over the account or balance systems used by other blockchains like Ethereum.
• Symbolic Voting with Bitcoin Addresses (optional): Two Bitcoin addresses are generated:
• Address A: To vote that the politician has fulfilled the promise.
• Address B: To vote that the politician has not fulfilled the promise.
• Citizens can express their opinion by sending small amounts of Bitcoin (satoshis) to the address representing their stance.
• Proposal Modifications (optional): The spirit of the system should not contemplate the possibility of modifications. In fact, Bitcoin does not allow it, even if desired. If a politician fails to fulfill a proposal, they simply do not fulfill it.
• However, if an alternative is sought and a politician wishes to update their proposal, a new transaction can be registered referencing the original in the OP_RETURN. This creates an immutable chain of promises and modifications, ensuring that the history of proposals is clear and accessible.

Advantages of the System:

• Total Transparency: Promises and expenses are recorded on the blockchain, providing an unprecedented level of trust and auditability.
• Accountability: Citizens can see how campaign funds are being used.
• Citizen Participation: Citizens can express their opinions on the fulfillment of promises through a simple voting system on the blockchain.

Disadvantages of the System:

• Proposal Size: The 80-byte limitation in OP_RETURN restricts the amount of information that can be recorded directly.
• Transaction Costs: Each transaction incurs a cost on the Bitcoin network, which could increase with multiple modifications or expenses.

Technical Considerations:

• Access Control: Implement a verification system so that only verified accounts can register proposals.
• User-Friendly Interfaces: Create a platform that translates transactions on the blockchain into an accessible format for citizens, allowing for easy verification of proposals and expenses.
• BIP-420 or Similar: If the option OP_CAT were to be re-enabled, we could concatenate strings and significantly expand the possibilities of PPR-BTC, including the ability to introduce basic smart contracts.

Conclusion

The possibility of integrating Bitcoin into the political sphere, especially for recording and verifying electoral promises, represents a profound transformation in the way citizens interact with their leaders. By utilizing the immutability and transparency offered by the blockchain, a system is created in which political promises can no longer fade into thin air. Bitcoin not only acts as a crypto asset, but its robustness serves as a tool for accountability.

The Bitcoin-Based Political Proposal Registration System ensures that voters can track every word from politicians and provides an auditable and decentralized mechanism to guarantee that campaign funds are used transparently. The immutability of transactions on Bitcoin, combined with precise tracking of contributions and campaign expenses, sets a new standard for transparency and accountability in politics.

Although the OP_RETURN field currently limits the amount of information that can be recorded, the reactivation of OP_CAT—a feature that would allow data concatenation in Bitcoin—would further facilitate the management of more complex information, opening the door to smart contracts and expanding the scope of political proposal registration. This would enhance the system's ability to incorporate even more details and make political promises clearer and more traceable.

Bitcoin not only ensures economic value; it guarantees promises. What is recorded on its blockchain remains forever, forcing politicians to fulfill what they promise or face the reality that their commitments will not be forgotten or erased. This new era of transparency could be the necessary impetus to restore trust in the democratic process, especially for those candidates who use Bitcoin in their campaigns merely as a marketing hook, seeking to attract new niches of enthusiastic voters but then fail to deliver on their promises. Now more than ever: Don’t trust, verify.