The US Division of Housing and City Improvement is reportedly trying to experiment with utilizing blockchain and a stablecoin for a few of its features.
The division, whose duties embody overseeing social housing, has thus far mentioned the opportunity of utilizing blockchain to watch grants, ProPublica reported on March 7, citing a gathering recording, paperwork and three officers accustomed to the matter.
Additionally mentioned was the thought of experimenting with paying a HUD grantee utilizing a stablecoin, which might first be examined in one of many division’s workplaces earlier than being utilized broadly throughout different workplaces.
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Two officers advised ProPublica they consider the HUD blockchain experiment could possibly be a trial run for using crypto and blockchain throughout the federal authorities.
A gathering final month mentioned a undertaking the place the Group Planning and Improvement workplace, which oversees billions of {dollars} in grants that help reasonably priced housing and homeless shelters, would observe funds to 1 grantee on the blockchain.
One assembly attendee later wrote the necessity for the undertaking was “not nicely articulated,” and a HUD official slammed the plan in a employees memo as “harmful and inefficient.” They added it was pointless and sophisticated and that stablecoin funds would add volatility.
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At a follow-up assembly, HUD staffers had a extra blended evaluation, with some saying the blockchain undertaking might contain paying grantees with crypto and one official saying it could possibly be accomplished with “a secure forex.” One other finance official stated blockchain could be applied throughout the company, beginning within the CPD.
Nonetheless, a HUD spokesperson advised ProPublica that “the division has no plans for blockchain or stablecoin. Schooling isn’t implementation.”
President Donald Trump has intently embraced the crypto trade, and the reported HUD experiment mimics the concepts of his cost-cutting czar Elon Musk, who helps utilizing blockchain in a bid to curb federal spending.
In the meantime, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated on the White Home Crypto Summit on March 7 that the federal government would ”put quite a lot of thought into the stablecoin regime” in a bid to “hold the US [dollar] the dominant reserve forex on this planet.”
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