The US government is prioritizing “distributed ledger technologies” (DLT), the tech underpinning cryptocurrency and blockchain, in its strategy for maintaining the superpower’s edge over its rival China.
DLT is one of 20 focus areas on the National Security Council’s “critical and emerging technologies” shortlist, which was released Thursday, Coindesk reports.
The NSC’s strategy calls for investing in, developing, adopting and promoting the technologies.
Artificial intelligence, data science, quantum computing and “space technologies,” weapons of mass destruction mitigation technologies are also included on the shortlist.
However, the document did not contain any hard numbers or a clear implementation plan
Some branches of the US government are already investing in blockchain infrastructure, most conspicuously the Department of Homeland Security.
The US military is also examining DLT’s potential applications in combat operations.
Beijing has been enthusiastic about the tech’s potential for some time now. A state-sanctioned distributed network for hosting dapps and internet services was launched earlier this year.
However, it is not yet clear how state-sponsored DLT use cases are viewed by Russia’s government.
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