Federal Government Information Technology

Treasury's Fiscal Service attempts to make blockchain more tangible in pilot

Fedscoop: Depending on who you ask, blockchain may be described as “the most disruptive tech in decades,” “the internet grabbing its pitchfork,” a “radical” transformation of the status quo.

But understanding what the technology actually is can be challenging, as John Hill of the Office of Financial Innovation and Transformation at the Treasury’s Fiscal Service is well aware. That’s why, in a new pilot program, he’s trying to bring it down to earth.

His office is using blockchain (a complicated, hype-laden word many struggle to understand) to better track agency-owned physical assets like computers, phones and more (those simple, familiar items that everyone understands). The hope? The pilot will serve not only as a way to assess the usefulness of blockchain for this purpose, but also as an educational experience — a way to make a complex technology very “tangible.”

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