TRENTON, N.J. – Assemblyman Christopher DePhillips’s bill to permit corporations to use blockchain for certain recordkeeping requirements passed the Assembly Science, Innovation and Technology Committee Wednesday.
The bill (A1178) clarifies that New Jersey corporations may use blockchain to simplify recordkeeping requirements.
Blockchains are an electronic ledger built around peer-to-peer systems that can be openly shared among users to create an unchangeable record of transactions. Each transaction has a timestamp and is linked to the previous transaction.
Every time a set of transactions is added, that data becomes another block in the chain. Transactions processed through blockchain can only be updated by consent between participants in the system, and once new data is entered it can never be erased.
Blockchain allows data to be stored globally on thousands of servers with anyone on the network seeing everyone else’s entries in almost real-time.
“We need to use the technology at our disposal to ensure our information is safe,” said DePhillips (R-Bergen). “Permitting companies to use blockchain not only helps protect the company’s data but allows for full transparency of that data. Large companies like Microsoft and Walmart have embraced this technology and we need to make this available to all companies, not just big box stores.”
Last session, a law was created forming a task force to study how blockchain can be used for government recordkeeping and service delivery.