US government admits it should stay out of the way regarding blockchain technology development

In an amazingly candid moment of self-awareness, the US government recently admitted that for blockchain technology to evolve to its fullest capacity, it might be best for them to stay out of the way.

Earlier this month at the 4th Annual DC Blockchain Summit the Acting Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment, Manisha Singh revealed this to the audience at Georgetown University. The event was organized by blockchain advocacy group the Chamber of Digital Commerce (CDC), and featured various influential speakers from US politics.

Curiously it appears from the speech given that the US government is closely monitoring the approach of other countries to get an idea of how they should deal with blockchain technology. In her speech Singh stated:

“We want to see other countries adopt light-touch and compatible regulations so the private sector has room to innovate and perfect potential new uses for blockchain. As the government, sometimes the best thing we can do to help is stay out of the way.”

This makes a pleasant change from a Federal government that usually wants to over-regulate things and could be why it’s taking so long for any further regulation at all to come out of the US regarding cryptocurrency and blockcahin in general. The US government has already used blockchain tech in defense and voting. For example in May 2017, DARPA awarded a grant to the developers of messaging app Crypto-Chat so that they could develop an encrypted, blockchain-based messaging and transaction platform for the US military.

And more recently, the city of Denver in Colorado used a smartphone app based on blockchain technology for conducting a municipal election.

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At the Blockchain Summit, the Under Secretary of State further mentioned that they are committed to protecting intellectual property and innovation. Now obviously blockchain technology is open source so no country can claim ownership to it. Some patent and copyright laws are obviously good but sometimes the government applies too much control over intellectual property and stifles growth in the sector, especially perpetual copyright that goes on for way too long in some cases.

The helpful characteristic of blockchain is precisely its open and decentralised quality. Singh went on to mention the government’s interest in blockchain specifically for cybersecurity, which is understandable considering there is already a cyber war going on behind the scenes, between nations as well as involving rogue actors globally.

Other sectors that interest the government regarding the use of blockchain that were mentioned in the speech include tracking the movement of goods in shipping, verifying identity in transactions, cross-border payments, healthcare, management and finance. Then there is the dubious field of data collection, which has caused some scandals recently, with the harvesting of customer data without their consent, only to sell it off to other companies who then use it to target advertising. Singh admitted that blockchain could definitely be used to streamline government functions as well as “improve public trust and confidence in the information managed by the government.” People are obviously fed up with having their privacy breached by data collecting measures used by government and the State could improve their reputation in this regard.

Other valuable areas in which the government plans to use blockchain tech is in monitoring how humanitarian and development aid is spent. The open source ledger facility of blockchain really allows one to track payments of donations and sponsorship funds more effectively and with better accountability. So many scandals have emerged over the years of donation money being stolen by corrupt and unscrupulous organizations, politicians and individual scammers throughout the world. This totally exploits the position of the suffering victims in need of the donations and places them into even further distress. It has to be one of the worst offenses, to take advantage of those who are already the most vulnerable.

The Under Secretary of State concluded her speech by saying that government was keen to be partners with any and all sectors who use the blockchain ecosystem, including private sector, civil society and academia. Besides that an interesting point was made by another speaker at the event, namely Christopher Giancarlo, chairman of US regulator the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) who even went as far as saying that blockchain could have been a mitigating factor in the 2008 economic crash – if it had been around back then. Blockchain technology and bitcoin only emerged after the 2008 recession and perhaps because of it.

There was a serious need to have an alternative system to the obviously poor one then being used by private central bankers who controlled, manipulated and caused the global financial crisis in the first place.

One can never tell when dealing with the forked tongue representatives of the dubious Federal government just how openly to take them. Big brother may be offering to protect you but may also be interested in extorting you for your gains or simply spying on you to be able to control you even more, so take the words of the Under Secretary of State at your own discretion.