Illinois Blockchain Taskforce

Illinois has released its first official government report about blockchain, which grew from an initiative aimed at exploring how the technology could help spur economic development in the state. RELATED Demystifying the Blockchain: A Basic User Guide It was called the Illinois Blockchain Initiative (IBI), and it was officially announced in November 2016, with a stated mission of exploring the potential of the new technology in regards to economic development. This resulted in the creation of the Illinois Blockchain Task Force, a group of appointed members from the state’s general assembly, as well as agency representatives and public entities involved with early efforts. The group met throughout the past four months to discuss and study blockchain, and the new report is a result of those efforts. Illinois announced its release in a statement Wednesday, Jan. 31, noting that the final blockchain report is hosted on the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), which is itself a blockchain and distributed ledger-related peer-to-peer file storage system. For those who don’t know or who are as of yet unfamiliar, blockchain-based systems can improve record keeping and service delivery. Blockchain is essentially a continuously-growing list of records secured with cryptography, a type of database replicated over a peer-to-peer network that is said to be immune to compromise. http://www.govtech.com/computing/Illinois-Releases-First-Official-Government-Report-on-Blockchain-.html