Eric Adams, who will be New York’s mayor for eight more days, on Friday unveiled the city’s new “blockchain plan,” a 61-page document intended to guide agencies as they investigate new uses of the distributed-ledger technology best known for undergirding cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. The plan is designed to aid agencies as they “investigate potential opportunities and risks, build public literacy on emerging technologies, and establish mechanisms to track progress and coordinate citywide efforts,” according to a letter attached to the plan signed by city Chief Technology Officer Matthew Fraser. Purportedly developed over the last 18 months, the new plan is a continuation of Adams’ many years of policies, and stunts aimed at stimulating the blockchain and cryptocurrency industries.
According to a press release, the plan also expands on an executive order Adams signed last October establishing an Office of Digital Assets and Blockchain Technology. The office is led by Moises Rendon, who for more than a year-and-a-half had served as a digital assets and blockchain policy adviser in the city’s Office of Technology and Innovation. After repeated calls and emails over the last two months, the city’s technology office has not cleared Rendon for an interview, nor answered questions about the new blockchain office’s operations.
When contacted for this article, a spokesperson from the technology office provided an excerpt from Fraser’s letter. The city’s plan notes that blockchain is a “fast-growing technology attracting intense global interest and development,” and points to the technology’s marriage with bitcoin and a recent rise in the number of new “digital assets.” The plan frames blockchain as an “emerging technology” that must be studied before the city can “chart a responsible path forward.”
The plan outlines several new initiatives, including a pilot project led by the city’s Department of Environmental Protection that explores using blockchain to verify asbestos certification. No further details on the pilot are provided, except that the IT office will also “engage other interested agencies on potential applications such as digital credentials, permits and licenses, or broader data management efforts.” There are plans for an interagency working group, a new “information hub” to advance public information and consumer safety, and technical guidance for agencies, centered on issues of “equity, privacy and data security, access, public benefit.” Not addressed in the plan is why the nation’s largest city is expending resources on a technology widely considered, outside of the crypto industry, to be of little utility.
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