Defining Blockchain

 Hello i4j friends,

As state and federal legislation of or involving blockchain technologies becomes more common, the question is arising: what is the definition of blockchain for purposes of statute and regulation? 

There are multiple views and drafts of potential definitions being circulated.  In light of our recent innovation definition discussion, I thought that maybe some of you would be interested in joining an open public forum to share your ideas, questions and specific proposals for legislative language defining Blockchain as part of an online participatory process and an in-person discussion to be held at the US House of Representatives https://law.mit.edu/Blockchain-Legislative-Definition  

Fintech is being driven by two major innovations – blockchain and distributed ledgers. I do believe that this is part of the digital future for the financial sector and understanding how the industry is changing is of critical importance. It will transform how financial transactions are recorded, reconciled and reported. Accordingly, it is going to be important to understand the skills, infrastructure and vision needed for blockchain and virtual ledgers.

I’m helping organize a Blockchain event at the MIT Media Lab on Sept. 13th link: https://law.mit.edu/blog/the-great-blockchain-bakeoff-of-2016  If any of you are interested, please just let me know. The Blockchain piece is part of the Electronic Transaction Association’s larger event that day but I think the Blockchain piece is important because it is reflective of an understanding that this is a methodology that can facilitate new processes and architecture that will make digital settlement more efficient and be a part of the new economy we all strive for, and for which the definition of Blockchain will be important.

Blockchain Definition Links: Use THIS FORM to contribute to the process and you can follow the progress, as it develops, on GitHub in this public repository: https://github.com/LegalCode/Blockchain

Cheers,

Amy

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