Basically there's another very rich black market that won't be stopped easily.
In Post Soviet Countries challenging the Oligarchs is like asking for a death sentence. What is required is a Western effort to go after these Crooks helping the elected Government to implement a system that can be trusted.
The thing is, if you want to do something about them, you're going to need to use a lot of violence - because those people will happily use violence against you.
Most people aren't interested in a starting a war, and would rather keep their heads down, and mind their own business.
A good friend of mine once worked for a small software shop that was building some accounting software for power plants. When the project was almost done, the mafia guys in charge were reviewing it. The realized that if it was actually used, it would be waaay to revealing. The project got canceled immediately. With a clause to “stay quiet or else”...
And a couple of years back the government was trying to “crack down” on the gray economy. They released an app, that you could scan a receipt (from grocery shops, restaurants, everywhere really) and verify that the establishment has indeed paid its tax and has registered the transaction with the tax office.
However people “in the know” got access to a special api. When the verification is taking place there is actually a web hook being sent, which you can register for. And pay your tax “on demand” only when someone actually wants to verify it.
As far as I am aware this system is still in place today... Though its too esoteric to explain to the public so nobody really cares it seams. The public is like “sure government is crooked, like what else is new” :(
This is a use case for Bitcoin/crypto I hadn’t previously thought of. The public auditability is exactly the reason I don’t think it’s good for citizen use cases, but it seems perfect for government use cases. There’s an issue of how revenues get accurately added to the ledger, but tying a transaction to say an ID generated when a return is submitted would make it possible to track one’s own payment.