One Blockchain to Rule Them All: Congressmen's Mission to Define the Technology

Its main purpose is to establish a common definition of 'blockchain' technology along with a blockchain working group that would potentially overview studies for federal adoption of the technology.

"In its basic and essential element and function, blockchain is a decentralized ledger technology But as the hype surrounding blockchain and its applications grow, how exactly blockchain is defined has become less clear. More fundamentally, there is no agreed upon definition of 'blockchain.'".

Tiffany Angulo, a staff co-chair of the Congressional Blockchain Caucus, warned that blockchain development could turn into a "Patchwork system", because states pass laws with different definitions of the technology.

Thus, both California's Assembly Bill 2658 and Arizona's House Bill 2602 define blockchain technology as a "Distributed ledger technology that uses a distributed, decentralized, shared, and reciprocal ledger, that may be public or private, permissioned or permissionless, or driven by tokenized crypto economics or tokenless. The data on the ledger is protected with cryptography, is immutable, is auditable, and provides an uncensored truth."

The new bill proposes that the U.S. Department of Commerce create a working group formed both by federal officials and members of the blockchain industry to form a common definition of blockchain.

According to the press release published on Matsui's website, the working group will also consider recommendations for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and Federal Communications Commission to study the potential impact of blockchain on spectrum policy and opportunities for federal adoption of the technology.

"Blockchain technology could transform the global digital economy. Opportunities to deploy blockchain technology ranges from greatly increased transparency, efficiencies and security in supply chains to more-opportunistically managing access to spectrum."

Dubbed the "Resolution Supporting Digital Currencies and Blockchain Technology" the "Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act" and the "Safe Harbor for Taxpayers with Forked Assets Act", the legislations focus on the support and development of blockchain, as well as the establishment of a safe harbor for taxpayers with "Forked" digital assets.

"The United States should prioritize accelerating the development of blockchain technology and create an environment that enables the American private sector to lead on innovation and further growth, which is why I am introducing these bills."

The bipartisan bill introduced by Matsui and Guthrie, if approved, could ease government's interaction with blockchain and potentially make the industry more attractive for local mainstream businesses who will get an official definition for the technology, and thus more options to explore it.