THELOGICALINDIAN - The US Postal Service has been investigating accessible means to use blockchain technology to accommodate casework to barter added calmly and improvetheir basal band Blockchain technology couldsoon be acclimated to bear column appointment banking casework character casework accumulation alternation administration and accessory administration A new address examines these applications and proposes a Postcoin belvedere to bear them
Also read: Australia Post: ‘Uber-Like’ Shift Awaits Parcel Services
The U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General issued a address Monday analogue accessible applications of blockchain technology to Postal Service operations. Compiled with the aid of consulting close Swiss Economics, the report, “Blockchain Technology: Possibilities for the U.S. Postal Service,” recommends the Postal Service added analyze the use of blockchain technology and suggests means that the USPS could agreement with the blockchain to bear postal services.
Developing a ‘Postcoin’ Platform
The Postal Service already offers banking casework such as postal money orders and money transfers. Streamlining these casework is the best accessible appliance of blockchain technology. The address from the Inspector General’s appointment suggests developing a Postcoin platform to bear these services. The address outlines two methods of deploying Postcoin: bootstrapping a new blockchain or affairs into an absolute one.
Postcoin is declared as accepting abeyant common benefits, accretion postal and banking casework and interoperability to added countries and added broadly aural those countries.
“Although the Postal Service could advance its own platform, Postcoin would be arch as a all-around postal money alteration and acquittal platform,” the address states. “Postal operators about the apple accept an incomparable concrete attendance that extends beyond added than 600,000 column offices worldwide, including areas area ante of banking exclusion are higher.”
Employing blockchain technology could aid the Postal Service in accomplishing the goals categorical in an beforehand OIG report, “Providing Non-Bank Banking Casework for the Underserved,” issued in 2014. That address argued the claim of column offices accouterment accessory non-bank banking casework to bigger serve underbanked communities, including prepaid debit cards, bill pay services, adaptable payments, and alike baby loans.
The Blockchain Technology address describes the apparatus of Bitcoin and another cryptocurrencies that employ blockchain technology, discussing several altcoins in particular, including Litecoin, Peercoin, Omni Layer, Ripple, Ethereum, and NEM. The address goes on to outline assorted blockchain accord mechanisms, such as affidavit of assignment and affidavit of stake.
Building the ‘Internet of Postal Things’
Beyond banking services, the report’s authors outline several accessible uses of blockchain for the Postal Service in the added abroad future. These accommodate character casework to accommodate absolute agenda identification enabling users to notarize documents, log in to defended websites or participate in assertive smart contracts. These examples would be an amplification of the character casework the USPS currently offers such as authorization appliance processing.
The Postal Service address envisions application the blockchain to administer every accessory complex in delivery, advertence “Blockchain may be a applicable way for the Postal Service to body and administer an Internet of Postal Things at a lower amount than traditional, centralized methods.”
As an example, the address suggests a self-maintaining mail barter that issues a acute arrangement to adjustment and install backup anchor pads back it senses the old ones cutting out.
Blockchain technology could additionally serve the USPS in accumulation alternation management, application the blockchain to accommodate a array of character account for packages. This absolute accessible identifier could speed up bales through community or interactions with added postal casework and clandestine bindle commitment services.
Chief Information Security Officer and Vice President of Digital Solutions, Randy S. Miskanic, explains that “The Postal Service will abide to appraise Blockchain technology in our addition activities for character management, accumulation alternation management, and defended cyberbanking communications.”
He goes on to say, however, that “we will charge to be alert in specific implementations to annual for technology barriers, aegis concerns, and authoritative uncertainty.” These apropos are counterbalanced by the advantages of blockchain technology accustomed in the report, including lower costs, college speed, bigger privacy, and all-around reach.
What do you anticipate about the U.S. Postal Service alive with blockchain technology? Would you use Postcoin? Let us apperceive in the comments area below.
Images address of USPS
