Cryptocurrency enthusiasts and government officials are not natural allies, at least externally Miami. However, Colorado governor Jared Polis received a warm welcome when he appeared on stage at the ETHDenver conference last week to present his vision for making Colorado a “technological state.” first number”.
That’s because he’s here to bring good news to crypto loyalists. Polis, a libertarian Democrat who made a fortune as an internet entrepreneur in the 1990s, places high hopes on blockchain technology. “Most people don’t trust big corporations or big governments, and that’s what blockchain allows us to do,” he declared to the applause of the ETHDenver crowd. “We see this as an important part of Colorado’s overall innovation ecosystem.” To that end, Polis announced, the state will soon be the first to allow residents to pay state income taxes and other fees in cryptocurrency, although the amount will be converted to US dollars. old before being put into the treasury.
Polis also added Colorado’s co-op regulations, which, he said, make the state particularly hospitable to “decentralized autonomous organizations” or DAOs, a form of blockchain-based co-op. And he discussed a project that aims to move the state’s cattle branding system onto blockchain.
Wait — blockchain? Cows? While Polis found purchases among ETHDenver accounts, his presentation raised more questions than it answered. This week, the governor spoke to WIRED about his plan to make Colorado, including livestock, the most blockchain-friendly state in the union.
WIRED: How would you explain to someone who doesn’t know much about blockchain why you think this is an important technology?
Jared Polis: A secure, distributed ledger technology is attractive compared to legacy, centralized database systems for a number of reasons. One is privacy and distributed control over your own information. Another factor is security because when you have a centralized system, it can always be vulnerable, no matter how protected you are, in ways that a distributed system is inherently lacking. Third, it can be more egalitarian. And fourth, it may be more welcoming to disruption and startups. When you have legacy systems, whether corporate or government, they can have an anticompetitive effect.
What does this have to do with cattle branding?
The cattle brand is exactly what you think it is. They’re a special symbol, which ranchers have sometimes passed on in their families, introduced into cattle raised in Colorado — and other states with cattle that have similar systems — and it added to a registry. You register your trademark and have tens of thousands of trademarks, many of which are no longer in use, but you cannot use trademarks that are used by others. The current system for that in Colorado and other states is a centralized database, a centralized ledger.
I’m from New Jersey, so just to make sure I’m with you: The point is if my cow wanders around or gets stolen, we know who owns it.
Sure. They wander and they get stolen and then you know who it belongs to, undeniably; it is registered. It is also used to catch and prosecute herders who steal livestock. So it’s used to prevent both theft and loss of livestock, a multi-billion dollar industry in the state of Colorado.
