Using micropayments for open access to public data

Using micropayments for open access to government data represents a forward-thinking approach to unlocking the immense value of public information. By adopting micropayments, governments can simultaneously promote innovation, enhance data quality, and support economic growth.

Micropayments are a good way to make data available to the public for education, research and to inform citizens. They can be particularly useful because they provide a funding opportunity for entities that produce and make the data available without financially burdening the individual citizen. Public data portals, such as Statista, with their subscription models, are unattractive to most citizens who only want to use data occasionally for personal information.

Apart from that, there are also data protection and security issues that can be solved by micropayments enabled via a blockchain. In general, a scaling blockchain like the BSV blockchain is suitable as a data infrastructure for governments and companies. Dr Craig Wright, Chief-Scientist of nChain and the inventor of Bitcoin elaborates on this in detail in his talk about ‘Ownership and Micropayments’

Why the BSV blockchain is the best solution for public data

Wright emphasises the importance of pseudonymity over anonymity on the BSV blockchain, making identity traceable but private. This feature can be beneficial for authorities and regulators in various contexts. Additionally, Wright highlights that BSV can facilitate a high volume of transactions while maintaining security and accountability, which is essential for handling e.g. citizen or government data.

The further points out that the BSV blockchain is not decentralised for the sake of decentralisation, but rather for the sake of security. Rather than undermining authorities and regulation, it can act as a valuable infrastructure for the public.

Overall, Bitcoin’s characteristics, including digital signatures and traceability, can be harnessed by authorities to enforce regulations and ensure transparency in financial transactions.

Micropayments can help institutions act as data managers and custodians

Governments and public institutions play a pivotal role in collecting, maintaining, and generating diverse datasets, ranging from economic statistics and geographic information to environmental data, studies, research data and public health records. Here are a few aspects of how micropayments can help institutions to fulfill this role.

Sustainable data infrastructure: Micropayments ensure data quality, and facilitate regular updates by allowing the creation of records of access and demand for certain data. This allows authorities to allocate resources more efficiently.

Supporting small businesses: Micropayments democratise access to government data, enabling small businesses and startups with limited resources to compete on a level playing field with larger corporations. This can drive economic growth by promoting entrepreneurship and competition.

Data privacy and security: Charging a nominal fee for data access can help deter malicious actors and discourage misuse of sensitive data. It also aids in tracking and identifying users, enhancing data security and accountability.

Quality assurance: Micropayments incentivise governments to maintain data quality, as users are more likely to pay for accurate and up-to-date information. This ensures that the data remains a reliable resource for businesses and researchers.

The BSV blockchain is the only globally scaling blockchain for micropayments

Using blockchains in the public domain has the advantage of eliminating security risks, transparency, and an immutable ledger that is accessible to authorised parties. Micropayments, however, are a feature that only very few blockchains can provide via layer one, i.e. directly via the blockchain.

Currently, the cost of a transaction is about $0.000003, making on-chain transaction costs lower than any other blockchain. Over the main net, the maximum throughput is about 10000 transactions per second. As the BSV blockchain will scale even more efficiently in the future, it’s the only blockchain that is suitable for businesses and governments. This is also helped by the fact that the BSV blockchain is designed to function within existing regulations.