From cointelegraph by Zoltan Vardai
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has saved US taxpayers $36.7 billion, prompting calls from crypto industry leaders for greater transparency in government spending through blockchain technology.
According to Doge-tracker data, the savings represent just 1.8% of Musk’s goal to reduce US government spending by up to $2 trillion. Musk outlined this vision during a Jan. 9 interview with political strategist Mark Penn.
Applauding the Musk-led agency’s progress, Brian Armstrong, Coinbase’s co-founder and CEO, took to social media to call for more transparency around government spending.
“Great progress DOGE,” Armstrong wrote in a Feb. 9 X post.
The distributed blockchain can offer a more transparent foundation for financial systems since decentralized blockchain ledgers are publicly verifiable in real time by anyone with an internet connection.
A potential blockchain-based treasury could also implement mandatory spending proposals, which would only allow a certain transaction if the majority of the population voted on it.
Related: Crypto liquidations hit $10B, 0G launches $88M DeFi AI agent fund: Finance Redefined
Musk’s non-governmental agency and the US Treasury reached a new joint agreement after discovering a $100 billion yearly loophole in governmental spending.
There were an estimated $100 billion worth of yearly entitlement payments to individuals without a Social Security number or a temporary identity number, which is “extremely suspicious” if proven accurate, wrote Musk in a Feb. 8 X post, adding:
“When I asked if anyone at Treasury had a rough guess for what percentage of that number is unequivocal and obvious fraud, the consensus in the room was about half, so $50B/year or $1B/week!! This is utterly insane and must be addressed immediately.”