Teton County, in Wyoming, is looking to put its land registry on the Blockchain network.
Obscured Information To Remain Obscured
The county in the blockchain friendly state of Wyoming has partnered with MLG (Medici Land Governance) who will be the ones developing the registry. This agreement has seen both parties sign a MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) with the start-up. Medici Ventures, the Blockchain investment arm of Overstock.com, is the majority shareholder of the start-up which will be building the registry on the OIP (Open Index Protocol).
According to a statement released by Overstock on Thursday, the newly developed registry will allow for the tracking of land transactions going as far back as 1996. He also added that the registry will maintain the current privacy protections as well as public access. These transactions will include mortgages and releases of liens.
The press release also stated that any information that is not available for viewing on the current registry will also be missing in the blockchain based system adding that regardless all public records will be accessible from the office of the county clerk.
Initiative Promoted by Wyoming’s Governor
Teton County’s County clerk Sherry Daigle has said, in the press release, that as a county Teton was proud to be leading in the integration of new technologies such as the distributed ledger technology into their land registry system. She added that in the event that the project succeeds, the state could be seeing it being expanded into other counties.
Devon James, OPI’s founder has said that when he heard that Wyoming was looking to adopt Blockchain technology he jumped at the opportunity to be part of it and support her efforts. He said that he has been frequently attending the Blockchain Task Force meetings and taking part in the public discussions but was particularly interested in the initiative dubbed the ‘Real Property Records on Blockchain’. This he said was due to the fact that as a firm OIP has been developing a database that perfectly fit the initiative.
Caitlin Long has said that the initiative was the brain work of the state senator Ogden Driskill, who brought together several county clerks and OPI’s founder to discuss the possibility of collaboration. Long is Wyoming Blockchain Coalition’s co-founder and former chairman of Symbiont, an enterprise Blockchain start-up.
Wyoming has been looking to be a leader in the adoption of Blockchain technology for a while. Earlier this year Driskill signed into law a bill that would see utility tokens with certain properties being exempted from securities regulations. There have also been other Blockchain based bills introduced recently.
Many More Initiatives To Follow
Long has said that there are currently six bills in total awaiting hearing once the next legislative session commences in January. The bills which are based on Blockchain regulations have been reportedly endorsed joint committees and, according to Long, have a high chance of passing.
Long believes that this is only the beginning of Blockchain adoption by the state saying that other initiatives are sure to follow.