The state that brought us Ben & Jerry’s is now offering a new combination of flavors – mixing blockchain with insurance.
The state of Vermont is a hub for captive insurance, a part of the insurance industry that involves companies self-insuring for some liabilities. This market, which traditionally has been grounded in the old ways of bank-verified transactions, is expected to “go blockchain” some time soon.
“The pilot program aims to test out the potential of the distributed ledger technology (DLT) within the state regulatory environment, which encompasses a review of relevant rules to assist in blockchain application,” writes Helen Partz at Cointelegraph today, describing a joint effort between federal and state officials. “(Vermont Secretary of State James) Condos claimed that the pilot will allow the state authorities to examine whether or not the implementation of blockchain for recordkeeping can improve aspects of the state regulatory process … specifically, blockchain deployment in Vermont’s captive insurance field aims to create a transparent and validated record of operations, and also to improve data accuracy and the efficiency and security of traditional recordkeeping practices.”
This isn’t the first time that Vermont has led the country in blockchain adoption. Headlines from March of 2018 show the city of South Burlington completing the first all-blockchain real estate deal in the nation using an innovative market partnership.
“An unnamed source at (blockchain real estate marketplace) Propy told ZeroHedge that the first totally Blockchain-based real estate transaction in the U.S. had been completed, making the city of South Burlington a “global blockchain leader,” wrote Molly Jane Zuckerman, also at Cointelegraph, at the time. “South Burlington had announced their use of Propy’s pilot program back in January of this year, testing Blockchain technologies for use in recording real estate documentation. Ukraine’s Agency for E-Governance also began a pilot program with Propy in August 2017 for offering properties to foreign investors on Propy’s real estate marketplace.”
Vermont’s new insurance innovation is another harbinger of increased blockchain activity that could push cryptocurrency prices through the roof this year. For some time now, experts have been touting 2019 as the year of blockchain adoption after 2018 failed to materialize the kinds of gains that some investors wanted. Make sure you keep watching prices as adoption increases throughout the coming seasons.