As blockchain technology gains importance in the field of management, and its use in the military could further boost the innovative development of military management, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Daily reported on Tuesday.
Blockchain technology, which has been described as an open and distributed ledger or record of transactions between two parties that cannot be tampered with, could be used to store military personnel data including basic information, career path, missions undertaken and rewards received, the daily said, noting that these data are technically ensured to be real and trustworthy.
Since blockchain technology can record data on military training, professional skills and missions assigned, a soldier's performance record could be calculated and evaluated and a good performance would be rewarded with additional tokens and bad performance resulting in a deduction of tokens, according to the report.
This token system could generate objective evaluations of troops and help motivate them, the newspaper said.
An anonymous expert familiar with administrative work in the PLA told the Global Times on Sunday that compared with previous reward and promotion systems used in the PLA, such as merit citations that were given only upon outstanding achievements and rank promotions which are based on years of service and long-term performance, the token system could be a more immediate incentive.
"It sounds similar to a KPI system that will give feedback to the troops very frequently," the expert said, noting that the PLA might still need to figure out what the rewards might be.
The token will likely not be allowed to circulate as money, and can only be used to exchange for rewards if the system comes into being, the expert predicted.
Blockchain technology will also provide safer data transmission and give the military an edge in confidentiality, the PLA Daily report said.
This article originally appeared on the Global Times website.