Editor's Note: Last week, the Rhode Island government hosted various representatives from blockchain companies in an effort to showcase the state as a potential hub for their companies and the technolyogy they work with. This op-ed, from one candidate for governor, explores why he's making blockchain a pillar of his campaign. It has been edited for length and clarity.
Rhode Island can lead the nation, economically and technologically, by becoming the “Silicon Valley” or “Route 128” for the greatest technological breakthrough since the invention of the World Wide Web: the blockchain.
Technology visionary George Gilder has called this rare opportunity “the Cryptocosm.” Such an event promises to have an economic and social impact as powerful as computers, computer chips, the Internet, the World Wide Web and fiber optics, all of which revolutionized the way we live and created trillions of dollars of new wealth and millions of great new jobs across the economy.
Which region will be the leading beneficiary of the jobs, affluence and influence that will come from leadership in the blockchain sector. It’s up for grabs right now, but it won’t be up for grabs for long. That's why the people of Rhode Island must seize this new day.
If elected, I hope to introduce a package of blockchain-related legislation in the General Assembly next January. As a citizen, I have already taken steps to meet with legislative leaders whom I expect to join me in introducing this legislation as soon as possible.
However, should blockchain opportunity be relegated to a “politics as usual” process, here is what will happen: broad, platitude-driven campaign endorsements of blockchain will be followed by calls for “study groups” and “committees” that, once convened, will never achieve blockchain’s potential.
I have prepared in exacting detail — including strategic, tactical and cultural initiatives — a fully built-out blockchain economy policy erected on four pillars: education; a welcoming business climate; government adoption of the blockchain infrastructure; and creation of an incubator/accelerator Cryptocosm Center. Implementation will give Rhode Island “first mover” advantage in the blockchain ecology, allowing us to capture the lion’s share of value. Here are representative examples of aspects of each pillar.
- Education: Set up blockchain coding and management programs at the University of Rhode Island, Rhode Island College and the Community College of Rhode Island, and we will quickly make Rhode Island the world leader in blockchain technology. Let URI lead a “Cryptocosm Consortium” with CCRI, RIC, Brown University, Bryant University, Johnson & Wales University, New England Institute of Technology, Providence College, the Rhode Island School of Design, Roger Williams University and Salve Regina University to establish Rhode Island as the Capital of the Cryptocosm.
- Business Climate: A sensitive, emerging entrepreneurial sector has neither the tolerance nor the luxury to engage with superfluous, expensive red tape. If we create the most welcoming regulatory climate for the blockchain here, Rhode Island can vault to the top of the list of locations where entrepreneurs and investors wish to set up the future Googles, Facebooks, Microsofts, Apples and Amazons.
- Infrastructure: Incorporate blockchain directly into the government’s own administrative infrastructure. Make the government, its suppliers in the commercial sector and its strategic partners in the nonprofit world ready customers for blockchain applications. No more DMV!
- Cryptocosm Center: Silicon Valley’s Y Combinator provides seed-funding to thousands of startups. Let Rhode Island seed an incubator/accelerator Cryptocosm Center to be managed entrepreneurially as a GOCO (government originated, contractor operated) entity.
As a stakeholder in our state’s future, I stand to do all in my power to ensure that blockchain in Rhode Island will not become just another addition to the slag heap of expedient political promises abandoned to rust away like the mountains of scrap along Allens Avenue. But instead of mountains, let’s create a valley. Let’s make Rhode Island the “Silicon Valley” of the Cryptocosm.
Such change, however, cannot take place in Rhode Island absent a radical transformation of the state’s century-old negative self-image, a self-fulfilling prophecy that finds Rhode Islanders resigned to a never-ending cycle of unimaginative and often corrupt political leadership and stagnant economies. As recently as a month ago, a respected, retired local television investigative reporter reacted to my blockchain program thusly (I paraphrase): “Great ideas, but this is Rhode Island. It won’t happen.”
The emergence of the blockchain creates a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Rhode Island, if it moves decisively and agilely, to achieve equitable prosperity and worldwide prestige. I am certain that the Rhode Island Cryptocurrency & Blockchain Association can provide invaluable assistance in the campaign to get it done.
Giovanni Feroce is a businessman, a former Rhode Island state senator and a 2018 Republican candidate for governor.
