Bitfury: Blockchain for Government
In the Republic of Georgia, legend had it their land was a precious gift from God he had intended to keep for his mother. But over time, the land had been under intermittent threat from without and within. In 2017, the Bitfury Group, which Valery Vavilov had co-founded, had helped publish 300,000 Georgian land titles onto the blockchain, making them immutable and, many believed, unhackable. What came next, Vavilov’s team envisioned, were smart purchase and sale contracts via the blockchain; and from there, a full suite of property-related services and, eventually, blockchain as the foundation for a transformation in government services. Vavilov, who had co-founded Bitfury and expanded it substantially from its bitcoin mining roots, felt a blockchain-driven makeover of this sort would take place not just in Georgia's government but also around the world. It was not a matter of "if?" anymore; although that still left the question of "when?"
Keywords: Blockchain; Bitcoin; cryptocurrency; public entrepreneurship; public innovation; government innovation; property rights; property registry; technology strategy; distributed networks; Entrepreneurship; Public Sector; Innovation and Invention; Technology Adoption; Business and Government Relations; Technology Industry; Real Estate Industry; Public Administration Industry; Georgia (nation, Asia); Tbilisi;
Citation:
Weiss, Mitchell, and Elena Corsi. "Bitfury: Blockchain for Government." Harvard Business School Case 818-031, October 2017. (Revised January 2018.) View Details
