An official involved with the US Treasury’s distributed ledger trial wants to see more government testing around the tech.
Craig Fischer serves as program manager for the the Office of Financial Innovation and Transformation (FIT), which is part of the Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service. Writing in an article published through the Journal of Federal Financial Management, Fischer offered a broad overview of the tech, writing that its potential application could “result in [us] being better overall stewards of our data and information.”
Yet before the government (which is pursuing a range of use cases across a number of federal departments and agencies) can get there, more trialling is needed, according to Fischer. He also highlighted work by a blockchain working group within the Association of Government Accountants, which includes representatives from governments, enterprises and industry startups.
“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,” he wrote.
Earlier this month, the US Treasury quietly revealed that it was testing the tech 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 of the the tech as well.
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