Florida can be a leader in developing a “Blockchain” cryptocurrency policy to draw high-tech innovators or fall behind other states in preparing the ground for 21st century economic development in the emerging “Blockspace,” Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis warns.
“Blockchain proponents say this technology will be as transformational as the internet,” Patronis told the 13 members of the Florida’s Blockchain Task Force in its inaugural meeting this week. “If this is true, we need to make sure Florida is ready.”
Florida was one of eight states where lawmakers adopted 2019 bills creating task forces to study the potential benefits of blockchain in modernizing methods of record-keeping that could save money and enhance the security of online transactions.
Senate Bill 1024, sponsored by Sen. Joe Gruters, R-Sarasota, and signed into law in May by Gov. Ron DeSantis, authorized the creation of the task force within the state’s Department of Financial Services [DFS].
The task force must present a report to Gov. Ron DeSantis and lawmakers in six months on how best to implement blockchain technology in Florida.
Blockchain has since mushroomed in market utility, as noted in SB 1024, and is now used to facilitate billions of dollars of transactions.
Blockchain is, essentially, a block of linked digital recordings of transactions. Once each block is completed, it’s added to the chain, creating a chain of blocks: a blockchain.
It is a digital ledger that is already in widespread use in cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin as well as in finance, voting validation, authenticating academic credentials and more.
Blockchain technologies and crypto-currencies first emerged as potentially viable financial systems with the advent of Bitcoin, invented by an anonymous individual or group under the name Satoshi Nakamoto and released as open-source software in 2009.
Developing a cryptocurrency policy has been among Patronis’s focuses as state CFO, pledging his support for the task force in presenting state officials and lawmakers will a path to follow.
“This is a great time for technology in this state,” he said. “Florida’s leaders, myself included, support technology growth and innovation, which ultimately grows our economy and increases our competitiveness.”
Among the task force’s missions will be to develop transparency regulations for Blockchain transactions while not overstepping privacy concerns.
Tampa-based Blockspaces co-founder Rosa Shores said Florida has an opportunity to be a pathfinder in developing a cryptocurrency policy noting Wyoming – not California or New York – is the state to replicate in establishing a foothold in the Blockspace
“We are seeing a lot of eyes on Florida in the blockchain space,” Shores said.
Florida Blockchain Business Association President Samuel Armes said Florida’s emphasis on studying how to implement a cryptocurrency policy is an “extremely awesome opportunity.”
Armes worked with Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg which, in May, became the first Florida government to accept cryptocurrency for payment, including Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash, to pay for services such as property taxes, driver license and ID card fees, as well as tags and titles.
Florida Public Service Commissioner and state Rep. Ronald Brisé, D-North Miami, was named task force chair.
"I think our task is simply to learn as much as we can from the citizens of Florida, from the things that are working within Florida and in other parts of the nation, and how we can implement some of those things within our work product," Brisé told WFSU.
