In order to advance in the world of cryptocurrencies and blockchain, the president of the United States, Donald Trump, sanctioned this week a military spending bill of more than 700 million dollars which includes a Cybersecurity investigation in Blockchain.
According to the information provided by the CoinDesk portal in September, the bill as advanced by the United States Senate at that time, demanded that the Department of Defense investigate "possible offensive and defensive cybernetic applications of Blockchain technology and other technology. Distributed databases. "
The language itself is part of the Modernizing Government Technology Act (MGT), which focuses on the improvement of government computer and cybersecurity systems.
The blockchain study, according to the latest version of the text (which was finally signed on Wednesday December 12 by Trump), will constitute "an assessment of the efforts of foreign powers, extremist organizations and criminal networks to use such technologies, in addition to an evaluation of the planned use of them by the Federal Government and critical infrastructure networks. "
The results of the study, according to the text, will be delivered to Congress sometime in the next 6 months. While it is ready to be prepared by the Department of Defense, which has explored a number of applications in the past, it is likely that the final product includes contributions from other federal agencies and departments.
And although it constitutes a minor element in the main financing laws, the measure, proposed by Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, could help stimulate research into possible uses of Blockchain within the US government, some observers say.
"Blockchain was clearly one of the technological capabilities that Congress wanted agencies to consider, and what they were trying to do was create dollars with some flexibility so that agencies had their own judgment about what they invest," said Trey Hodgkins, senior vice president of the Public sector in the Information Technology Industry Council in Washington, DC, in a press statement last month.