PieFedTrump administration’s blockchain plan for USAID is a real head-scratcher
Sibshopsarstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/03/trump-admin…
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It makes total sense to me, the Crypto industry is backing Trump big time, and VP Vance's good buddy, Peter Thiel, is heavily involved in Crypto-related startups. This looks like the perfect opportunity to send wads of money to new Thiel-aligned Blockchain-based startups, then shrug when they can't do anything more efficiently. "Who knew this was so complicated?"
So instead of that money going to help needy people, it props up the Broligarchy.
Sludgehammer“It feels like a fake technological solution for a problem that doesn’t exist,” she says.
Yep, that's pretty much every proposed blockchain use case.
Some of them are technological solutions to real problems like grifters not having as much money as they want or crooks finding money laundering too difficult.
This has been a proposed use case for public blockchain technology for a long time. If government agencies have to use crypto currencies that run on public blockchains, that means anyone with a computer and internet connection can audit that agency to see exactly what they are spending their money on. You can even program the money so that it’s impossible to spend it on things that aren’t approved for that agency. Essentially it’s extreme transparency with the aim of preventing fraud.
And yes I know implementation will be hard. And yes I know the people at the helm right now have no genuine interest in government accountability or fraud prevention. But I’ve been following the development of blockchain technology for over a decade and this is literally one of the first use cases that was proposed when bitcoin was invented.
The cornballer was originally intended to make cornballs, and it can. It will also burn the God damn shit out of you and anyone within a meter, and you better have a fire extinguisher around when it's time to clean up.
What I'm trying to say is, this is not going to work well or be efficient, and this "transition," is not going well or being efficient. Musk claims he saved some hundred billion, yet he has racked up a cost probably around half a trillion. He has fired and rehired 10s of thousands of employees in critical roles in critical agencies (well, he's trying to rehire them, rick!). His "accounting" has been shown to be off over and over again.
Elon Musk has proven to the entire world he is nothing but a fuck up with too much money, and everything he touches turns to shit.
anyone with a computer and internet connection can audit that agency to see exactly what they are spending their money on
What if critical suppliers aren't accepting their crypto coin, or can they force everyone to accept it?
If you want humanitarian aid or be a government supplier, you'll probably accept it. But I imagine it'd need to be something like USDC
I don't expect to see the government paying aid recipients or suppliers with ethereum or something similar directly.
You can still get all the blockchain tracking and smart contract stuff with USDC.
What's the grift this time? Backed by DOGE and Melania coins?
Insider trading. They’ll use coins that they and their billionaire buddies are already heavily invested in.
added burdens and costs for small NGOs using new systems
I’m banking on business solutions to nonexistent problems
Why doesn't DOGE just rob a bank?
naeapThey skipped the bank and directly went for the US treasure department and tax money
It probably will be something like that, but a blockchain ledger doesn't need a coin.
This is one of the few things that might (if done correctly, ie. no coin) actually be a reasonable idea, a record of aid delivered that is immutable protects it from both 'misplaced' funds and malicious governments trying to erase previous governments achievements (like the current US gov is doing)
They probably think that tracing it will be easier than cash, but obviously there's a few issues with that:
- we don't use stablecoins in our day to day lives in western cities with ubiquitous internet and reliable power, it's probably easier to work it out here first before exporting it to areas that don't have those things
- a big part of USAID's raison d'être actually is corruption. It supports opposition news outlets in adversary countries, and projects like free trade/enterprise zones in poorer countries. The actual 'good' aid it provides is more of a cover for those projects. If you make all transactions traceable on a blockchain, those countries will know exactly what's being funded and they'll have an easy time shutting it down, or have a harder time staying in power if people knew what concessions they're trading their aid for. I still don't really know if Trump/Musk just don't know this and think USAID is doing what it does purely out of altruism, or if they just don't believe in the concept of soft power.
JFC on a stick. Here's a few reasons why this is assenine.
10 years ago implementers tried to stick blockchain into everything. It flopped over and over again. It's simply not practical for 99% of what humanitarian assistance does.
USAID programs and budget and spending was all FOIAable and heavily audited public record. Do you want to see the invoices submitted for all programs in Malawi from 2018? You used to be able to get that. Annual reports showed detailed budgets. Presentations to Congress presented detailed budget documents. Top to bottom this was already more detailed than a blockchain can realistically provide. They broke a system because they couldn't understand the difference between dense and detailed but visible, and impractical EILI5 level simplicity.
So you put the transactions on a chain. Great. How does that turn into a salary payment for Malawian staff who only have Malawian bank accounts? It doesn't. So now you have 2 systems. Meaning twice as much opportunity for error and chance for fraud to go unrecognized.
Most developing world fraud is things that look like perfectly reasonable procurements where the terms of the tender are overly specific as to limit who can win a bid (see Oklahoma school bible solicicitation). Blockchains don't correct for that. That's all public information in most places, which is why the fraud has to be so clever.
freezycentibillionaire
I'm not entirely sure the author thought that through
It's rare to see someone getting it in popular media.
Taking a shot in the dark here and saying they're implementing blockchain to enable corruption and fraud.
Yes! There was no fraud before, so lets add some and take credit for fixing it. It's the classic Trump cycle.
It feels more like they are trying to use the guise of 'foreign aid' to try and install international dependencies on a US led crypro-currency in response to the dying global-economic relevancy of the US Dollar. Or not.
My understanding of USAID is that it is primarily a front for CIA operations. So, having all their financial activities recorded on a public ledger would be not particularly… intelligent. So there’s that.
Works as a flex I guess. Does this government agency budget statement really include a multi-million dollar line for "arming fascist death squads to destabilize countries most of us couldn't find on a map"? Why yes it does, what are you going to do about it!
Doubtful that USAID is a front for CIA. Musk has access to USAID and hasn't found any fraud.
my racist uncle who says he works for nintendo, hates video games, and consistently can’t program his microwave didn’t mention there’d be a new metroid game so it’s doubtful they’re still making them
Did you drop an /s or jk there bud
I don't mean just Elon. USAID's spending is both public and subject to the FIA requests. Blockchain isn't helping with anything here.
If you have info about how USAID is a front for covert CIA operations. That would be newsworthy.
Don’t put words in my mouth, bud.
The primary benefit of USAID to the US is as a tool of soft power, internationally. You think the US just does things to be nice? That they don’t have any strategy in mind when throwing cash at other countries? That the CIA wouldn’t play any role in US foreign policy?
I think the bigger problem is that it assumes that the CIA is the center of US foreign policy and that all other parts of the government are fronts for it. Obviously USAID is a vehicle for US soft power, and the CIA is absolutely a bunch of ghouls and vampires masquerading as a government agency. But a legacy of villainous stupidity doesn't make them the shadowy secret masters of the world that the kinds of conspiracy theories that call USAID a "front" would suggest they are.
The way that I look at the US (when it is not operating under trump*) is that it is a machine that is trying to maintain and/or grow its hegemony. To that end, the CIA is a vital part of that machine. Is it the centre of foreign policy? Well, barring some sort of conspiracy, no, the US State department is the centre of foreign policy. However, the CIA is categorically the foreign intelligence-gathering arm of the US. As incompetent as I'd like to pretend the US is, I don't think the State Department is operating without CIA intelligence and analysis. In sum, I don't believe that the CIA is a shadowy evil organisation secretly controlling the US; I think the US is a shadowy evil organisation trying to control the world, and the CIA is part of it.
I think the thing that sucks about all this is that, on paper, USAID does good! They provide a ton of aid around the world, and that's great. However, they have enough blemishes on their record that show that the US isn't necessarily purely charitable in its actions. Aid shouldn't be weaponised!
*trump and his goons, of course, are just stripping the US of its copper wiring for a quick fix, while letting the establishment lapdogs deal with the drudgery.
I probably just misunderstood what you mean by "front". I read it as something like a feigned appearance. Maybe I'm just having trouble understanding how a something can be both openly avowed (not covert) and yet non-openly avowed (a front) at the same time.
I agree with USAID being a tool for soft power. So are many things, like Hollywood. Doesn't mean Hollywood is a CIA operation.
Sure.
That would be the long and short of it.
Definitely don't look up these terms, they might be above your reading level:
Great!
Putting aside the equivocation, that's a lousy counterexample. Are you just going to pretend like propaganda doesn't exist?