On a different, less energetic level, blockchain appears ready to gain more users in the public sector — especially if it can be seen as more than mere digital scaffolding for cryptocurrency, which carries a disreputable reputation even as it moves deeper into the mainstream.
If so, New Jersey-based Balcony wants to be among the companies serving that growing demand.
“People are realizing, hey, this technology is here to stay,” Daniel Silverman, the company’s co-CEO and co-founder, told Government Technology. “People are becoming more educated on this,” adding that the ongoing rise of blockchain compares to the “early days of the Internet” when the mainstream didn’t always have a sophisticated grasp of the technology.
Earlier this year, Bergen County, N.J., part of the New York City metro area, hired Balcony to use blockchain — a decentralized digital ledger often described as a “spreadsheet in the sky” — for property records management.
Backers of blockchain say it is efficient, secure and transparent, and that the digital ledger offers no single point where it could fail. In Bergen County, the work by Balcony promises to cut deed processing time by 90 percent while also closing off opportunities for fraud and title disputes, the company has said.
Balcony views its tech as an “interconnective tissue between legacy systems,” Alexander McGee, Balcony co-founder and head of government affairs, told Government Technology. “We aggregate all their data in a way that is more accessible than [what] they have.”
The Bergen County project covers property worth an estimated $240 billion, parcels that produced some $500 million in annual property taxes. The push involves 70 municipalities, further underscoring the sweep of the work and vision.
This summer also has brought more good news for backers of public-sector blockchain.
Another property-focused project in Baltimore, for instance — one that includes Medici Land Governance, a “blockchain land registry” — aims to document 16,000 vacant properties, with the secure digital ledger helping to make title transfers easier and cheaper. In turn, that could spark redevelopment, according to project backers.
In New York City, meanwhile, Mayor Eric Adams backs a “digital asset advisory council” designed to promote the city as a hot spot for crypto, blockchain and other technologies. The project potentially could impact how residents pay for taxes and services, at least according to comments made by the mayor at the time.
Back in New Jersey, Bergen County — with an estimated population of more than 978,000, and its location within the Northeast megalopolis — could provide even more spotlight and eventual support for public-sector blockchain, according to Silverman, assuming the project succeeds.
“I think a lot of governments have been waiting for the big one,” he said.
Balcony has at least five clients in New Jersey and by mid-summer “was [actively] pursuing a large opportunity with the state of Wyoming,” a state he says has been particularly “innovative” with crypto and blockchain.
The technology offered by Balcony, in fact, could even serve to ease the minds of people worried about Chinese ownership of farmland in the U.S. — a problem that has divided people politically, with some saying the issue is overblown while others express worries about national security.
“We have software that can tell if people from China are buying farmland,” McGee said.
