State

Governments are ready to expand use of blockchain, report says

A new survey from IBM reports that 9 out of 10 government leaders worldwide think they will be using blockchain by 2020, and a small group of leaders expects to start working on it this year.

By Shaun Waterman

February 1, 2017

Fourteen percent of government organizations expect to have blockchains in production and at scale in 2017, while 9-in-10 expect to be using the technology by 2020, an IBM survey reported.

The IBM Institute for Business Value, which authored the report, said in a blog post it was surprised to see that some government organizations expected to have blockchains in production in the coming year. The group referred to these leaders on the emerging edge of blockchain as “the trailblazers.”

Indeed, some state and local agencies have taken the lead on bringing the digital ledger technology to their governments. Late last year, Illinois launched an initiative to create governance around the technology. In a partnership with the state Department of Commerce, the information technology department released a request for information soliciting input from the blockchain tech community on how to develop strong applications in government.

For more information on IBM’s blockchain study, head over to Scoop News Group’s CyberScoop.