Hi everyone. This article will show instances of the US Government warming up to blockchain and distributed ledger technology.

It seems that recently with the explosion of cryptocurrencies, national governments are not only recognizing cryptocurrencies and blockchains, but are actively pursuing to explore and understand them. Let's get started.

Senior White House Officials Advocate Blockchain

Recently, at the Data Transparency 2017 Conference, many Senior W.H. Officials spoke about changes in data technology. Margie Graves, an acting officer at the Office of Management and Budget spoke fondly of blockchains.

She emphasized distributed ledger technology's many usages, from reducing fraud to helping cybersecurity defenses.

With artificial intelligence and blockchain, the [White House] is exploring a whole range of forward-leaning capabilities that might be helpful to government... These kinds of technologies are always something that we should explore. I don't want my customers to be the last to know, or to be the last to be able to take advantage of some of these.

— Margie Graves at Data Transparency 2017 Conference

Additionally, another WH official also spoke about blockchain and AI. Chris Liddell, director of strategic initiatives and assistant to the President at the WH, emphasized that the government is working right now with a forward-looking eye at technologies like the blockchain. According to Liddell, the government is definitely keeping blockchains and new technology in mind when developing products and services for today.

As we look to the future, we want to ensure that today's reforms do not hinder tomorrow's adoption of emerging technologies... whether it is blockchain, artificial intelligence or perhaps a new technology that hasn't yet been envisaged, standardized data will help ensure the government stays current of technology's latest trends.

— Chris Liddell at Data Transparency 2017 Conference

Senior White House officials seem excited about the possibilities of blockchains and distributed ledger technology, along with other new tools like artificial intelligence.

US Patent Office Administrator Explores Blockchain Growth

Bill Brantley, the training administrator of the USPTO (Patent/Trademark Office)'s Global Intellectual Property academy, also had many comments on blockchain.

In an article published to the government's DigitalGov website, Brantley explored how blockchain growth could affect different facets of the government.

Brantley recognizes three main benefits for the blockchain:

• "Securely storing digital records and making the digital records easily accessible."
• "Easily and securely [exchanging] digital assets without having to waste time going through intermediaries."
• "Smart contracts... This sequence of actions is a method by which parties can agree upon contract terms that will be executed automatically, with reduced risk of error or manipulation."

Brantley realizes that blockchain's growth may be slowed by the fact that "implementing a blockchain requires a large-scale organizational change project to prepare the federal agency for the distributed trust environment," however he does recognize the potential for blockchains to make a splash in many fields of government.

Blockchain is Well-Recognized within US Government

From the above, it's easy to tell that the potential of blockchain and distributed ledger technology is respected and recognized within the Government and White House. Earlier this year in March 2017, there was a DC Blockchain Summit held in the US Capital where officials from many branches of government spoke about blockchains and acknowledged its capabilities.

It seems like the White House is setting a bullish trend for blockchain, which is good news for supporters and cryptocurrency investors.

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Thanks for reading,
— @mooncryption

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Profile Picture Change!

As of Thursday, September 28th, 2017 at 2:30pm PST, @mooncryption officially launched V2 of its profile picture :) The new profile picture is in effect right now. V1 consisted of a realistic/photographic Moon with the word "Mooncryption" displayed on it, while V2 now consists of a flat/minimalistic moon icon with a golden "M" displayed on it. At the bottom of this post, I'll reference the sources I used to create the image (all editing/compilation was done by myself):

• Moon Flat Icon made by Twitter from www.flaticon.com is licensed by CC 3.0 BY
• Golden M created using Preview by myself (font: Didot)
• Background space image from Unsplash

Hope you guys like the new profile picture :) If you have any feedback (positive, negative, or neutral) feel free to leave it on this post.