More Blockchain Pilots Needed, Says US Treasury Official

A government official involved in the US Treasury's investigation of distributed ledgers is pushing for further testing of the technology.

In an article published in the Journal of Federal Financial Managementhttps://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/fsservices/gov/fit/JournalofFederalFinancialManagement.pdf this week, Craig Fischer, who serves as program manager for the Office of Financial Innovation and Transformation (FIT), part of the Treasury's Bureau of the Fiscal Service, offered a broad overview of the tech, writing that its potential application could lead to advances in data and information sharing.

Yet before the government (which is pursuing a range of use cases across a number of federal departments and agencies) can get there, more trials are needed, according to Fischer.

Elsewhere, he went on to highlight efforts by a blockchain working group within the Association of Government Accountantshttps://www.agacgfm.org/Corporate-Partners/CPAG-Committees/Committee.aspx?ID=BLK, which includes representatives from governments, enterprises and industry startups.

He wrote:

"To fully understand how DLT will impact our community, we must start developing relevant use cases, proofs of concepts and pilot projects. But testing is only the start of the solution."

Earlier this month, the US Treasury quietly revealed that it is testing blockchain to see how it can digitally trace the movement of physical assets, such as smartphones and computers.

At the time, the Bureau – which is responsible for handling interagency payments as well as borrowing funds on behalf of the government – said that it would explore other uses cases as well.

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