According to a recent IBM report, developers and companies working on blockchain technology are seeking help from the US government to encourage wider adoption of the technology.

The report, written by Thomas Hardjono, director of the MIT Trust: Data Consortium, summarizes the Congressional Blockchain Caucus (an organization of legislators in the US Congress interested in blockchain technology) The results of a series of blockchain-related roundtables held in 2017 and 2018. These meetings were led by organization representatives David Schweikert and Jared Polis to educate more people about the potential use cases of the blockchain and accelerate technology development.

Specifically, the three previous meetings have different focuses: digital identity, payment, supply chain, and traceability. The report explains:

“The industry generally believes that Bitcoin currency and blockchain technology will be at the forefront of the ‘next generation Internet’ economy.”

The report adds:

“Governments and industry must work together to continue to strengthen technology/market leadership in this emerging arena and address potential policy and regulatory incompatibility that may limit the growth of the emerging digital blockchain economy.”

Therefore, the goal of each meeting is to better explain the blockchain use case, find common interests, accelerate the deployment of technology, identify factors that may hinder the adoption of blockchain technology, and find cross-enterprise or industry applications. possibility.

The report explained that the participants reached a three-point consensus: Participants believe that the development of Bitcoin trading and blockchain requires “government leadership and vision” and should have “close cooperation between industry and government” and must be deployed. “More research and experimentation.”

The report states:

“At present, the US government needs stronger vision and leadership in developing digital blockchain economy-related technologies and its role in the future economy. Industry leaders believe that this technology will be at the heart of the overall future of the economy, Like the Internet.”

Demand for public resources

The report did not provide details of the participants and did not provide the projects they might represent.

However, representatives of Ripple, Sweetbridge, Joust Bank, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Microsoft Decentralized Identity Foundation, the Sovrin Foundation, the Linux Foundation, and IBM all delivered speeches at these conferences.

In addition, the report stated that there were very few people who attended repeatedly at each meeting.

The report concludes that:

“There is a need to invest more resources in this emerging but rapidly evolving technology, just as the US government funded early Internet research in the 1970s and 1980s.”

The report states:

“It is the government’s support and the shared vision of the United States to play a leading role in the initial Internet communications technology, making the Internet widely available and the foundation of today’s digital economy.”