- The State of California just digitized 42 million car titles by putting them on the blockchain.
- It hopes that this will smooth the title transfer process and reduce fraud at the same time.
- Californians will have the ability to access their title information in the blockchain next year.
Everyone hates going to the DMV and even more hates being the victim of fraud. The State of California thinks it can reduce fraud and trips to the DMV, which comes in the form of the blockchain. No, this isn’t some wild new NFT or digital currency, it’s an online unalterable record of property ownership.
Think of the blockchain as a public database where everyone can see everything that goes on. Once a record is created, it cannot be changed, and it carries with it important data like when it was made, what record came before it, and more. Technically, changes are possible but they would require alteration of every subsequent record as well.
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It’s this unalterable record that California hopes to leverage on the Ava Labs’ Avalanche blockchain, a product of Oxhead Alpha. “So the first step was creating the 42 million titles associated as a token on the Avalanche blockchain, that’s what the State of California DMV has already done and now what they’re doing is they’re creating a wallet where you download on your phone,” said John Wu, president of Ava Labs to Reuters.
According to the report, residents will get access to their personal records early next year. Between now and then, the DMV is working to fully build out the application environment and implement processes for public access. Notably, the report doesn’t talk about how the state will ensure privacy for its citizens.
While it’s possible to anonymize some data on the blockchain, the entire point is that it’s transparent and accessible to everyone. Perhaps the state doesn’t plan on putting any personal information into the system beyond identifiers for the vehicle(s) in question. It also doesn’t say how it’ll manage cars that enter or leave the state over time. Either way, it does seem as though this strategy could reduce title and or lien fraud.