How the White House Can Win the War for Blockchain

In July, Congress passed the Chips and Science Act, which authorized a blockchain specialist for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). But now Congress should go further. The National Economic Council and the National Security Council need advisory specialists on blockchain.

Why focus on the White House? Because anything well guided from the highest level of government is far more likely to be consequential. And blockchain, an elegant but sophisticated technology, is not something you can just wing.

In 2019, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for China to occupy the “commanding heights” in blockchain technology. An engineer by training, Xi is attuned to the implications of technology in a way that few US officials can be.

When America’s main rival spills its strategy, the administration would do well to take the cue. For America to maintain its status as the world’s technological leader, it must achieve this at the highest nation-state level.

Executive Order 14067 is the perfect springboard for this advancement. It says:

The main policy objectives of the United States with respect to digital assets are as follows:

(a) We must protect consumers, investors, and businesses in the United States. The unique and varied nature of digital assets can pose significant financial risks to consumers, investors and businesses if appropriate protections are not in place. …

(b) We must protect United States and global financial stability and reduce systemic risk. …

(c) We must reduce the illicit financial and national security risks posed by the misuse of digital assets. Digital assets can pose significant illicit financial risks, including money laundering, cybercrime and ransom, drug and human trafficking, and terrorism financing and proliferation. … When digital assets are misused or used in illegal ways, or undermine national security, it is in the national interest to take action to reduce these illicit financial and national security risks through regulation, oversight, law enforcement, or the use of other United States Governmental authorities.

Speaking with first-hand knowledge, we can safely say that blockchain remains esoteric for heads of federal agencies. One of the greatest yogis, Yogi Berra, is said to have observed that “in theory there is no difference between practice and theory. In practice there is.” The United States deserves to have advisors who understand blockchain in theory and practice advising the president.

As H. William Dettmer wrote of Blitzkrieg Theory, the highest level of skillful expertise was called fingersptizengefühl: “Literally ‘feeling with the fingertips’ or ‘touching’, it really involves intuitive skills. … That’s the kind of expertise that world-class musicians like Yitzhak Perlman or Yoyo Ma have. They don’t have to read the music and consciously translate it into hand gestures; the music just flows from their heads, where they hear it in every detail, through their fingertips to the instrument – ​​instinctively and inherently correct the first time.”

For a potentially game-changing technology like blockchain, America deserves advisors with one fingersptizengefühl level of sophistication in the president’s immediate circle of political advisers.

Adding a top-flight blockchain specialist to the White House OSTP is a good start, but it is ultimately insufficient. Then funds and recruits colleagues for the National Economic Council and the National Security Council. These additions will provide invaluable expertise to the executive branch and allow America to dominate blockchain’s dominant heights technologically, economically and as a matter of national security.

Todd White is the founder of American Blockchain PAC, where Ralph Benko is a senior advisor.

Image: Reuters.