RedChain Brings Blockchain Transparency Without Surveillance
The Spanish Red Cross (Creu Roja) has rolled out RedChain, a new blockchain-based aid distribution platform designed to deliver real-time transparency for donors while fully protecting beneficiary privacy. The system replaces paper vouchers and prepaid cards with digital aid credits, while ensuring that no personal data is ever written onchain.
Developed in collaboration with BLOOCK and Billions Network, RedChain digitizes the entire aid lifecycle-from donation to spending-without turning recipients into trackable data points. Instead of exposing identities, the blockchain acts as a neutral verification layer.
How RedChain Works Behind the Scenes
RedChain issues ERC-20 aid credits on the Ethereum network. These credits are delivered to beneficiaries via a mobile wallet, where they can be spent at participating merchants using QR codes, just like a normal checkout transaction.
Crucially, all sensitive beneficiary data-names, contact details, and case records-remains entirely offchain inside the Spanish Red Cross’s own internal systems. Onchain data is limited to hashes, timestamps, and cryptographic proofs, making it impossible for third parties to reverse-engineer identities from public records.
A Creu Roja spokesperson explained that donors can audit when and how funds were allocated and spent, but will never see who received the aid or why. Transparency, they stressed, applies to flows and outcomes-not individuals.
Separating Accountability From Identity
At the heart of RedChain is a deliberate design choice: accountability without surveillance. Donors and administrators can verify aggregated data-such as total funds distributed, timing of disbursements, and program-level outcomes-while beneficiary dignity remains intact.
Francisco López, project lead at Creu Roja Catalunya, said the system responds to a growing ethical tension in humanitarian aid. Vulnerable people, he noted, should never be forced to trade privacy for assistance. RedChain ensures recipients can shop normally, without visible markers that identify them as aid beneficiaries.
Because transactions look like standard retail purchases, recipients are shielded from stigma or exclusion at checkout-an often overlooked issue in traditional aid programs.
Blockchain as a “Public Notary” for Aid
Rather than acting as a data warehouse, RedChain uses blockchain as a certification and integrity layer. BLOOCK describes this approach as “blockchain as a public notary,” where every relevant state change is cryptographically anchored to a public ledger.
BLOOCK CEO Lluís Llibre explained that any attempt to alter internal records after the fact would immediately fail verification against immutable onchain proofs. In short, tampering becomes detectable without exposing the underlying data.
Meanwhile, Billions Network supplies the zero-knowledge credential layer, allowing beneficiaries to prove eligibility or authorization without revealing identity or personal attributes. These proofs live in the user’s own wallet, not in a centralized identity registry.
A New Model for Humanitarian Aid
RedChain reflects a broader shift in humanitarian technology. As donors increasingly demand verifiable impact, organizations are under pressure to provide transparency-yet doing so responsibly means avoiding the creation of permanent digital trails tied to vulnerable populations.
By combining Ethereum-based verification with offchain data custody and zero-knowledge proofs, the Spanish Red Cross is positioning RedChain as a privacy-first blueprint for future aid systems. The project suggests blockchain’s real value in humanitarian work may lie not in exposure-but in provable restraint.
