In the US, government hearings have been discussing the advantages and risks of blockchain and related technologies such as cryptocurrency. Some meetings have arguably been more fruitful than others. But that hasn’t prevented advocates in both the public and private sectors from promoting the advantages of blockchain technology over nearly every industry.

Now, a new non-profit organization is intending to bring blockchain developers and engineers together with the individual purpose of building applications for government usage.

The Government Blockchain Association (GBA) is producing a decentralized platform that will use various blockchains to build an interoperable network for use cases including auditing, revenue collection, budgeting, permitting, and licensing.

According to the GBA, “The goal of this blockchain is to make government applications like license management, or permitting a government shared-service.” Governments have duplicate processes at all levels down to state, city, and county, and the GBA understands blockchain gives a method of streamlining all of this. If you’re employing for a building permit, for instance, rather than having to file forms with various jurisdictions, you can bestow data across jurisdictions in a way that is safe and verifiable acknowledgments to blockchain’s decentralized encryption.

The platform, which the association is calling the GBBP (Government Business Blockchain Platform), will also enable government blockchains to communicate with other public and private blockchains. This will allow governments to store data within their network, however, also pass data over other government and non-government blockchains if required. The nature of blockchain combines layers of security to make this feasible since no single owner can transform any data on the network without the consensus of the blockchain participants.

However, does the concept of a government blockchain run counter to the vitality of the technology? Many who were encompassing in the early days of Bitcoin will recognize a big part of the appeal of cryptocurrency was the proposition of a decentralized currency that wouldn’t be managed by any government – providing citizens truly anonymous purchasing power (for better or worse).

Daché affirms that the organization is not a lobbying group and will not be engaging in talks linked to the regulation of blockchain. “GBA is a business league,” he told in a statement. “While we are a great resource for regulators and have provided support to government leaders, our primary interest is not lobbying or trying to influence policy. Our primary goal is to help the public and private sector connect, communicates, and collaborate.”

In terms of concerns regarding government-controlled blockchains, Daché grants a more measured reply. “I think people confuse blockchain with distributed ledgers,” he stated in a statement. “There are some things that enterprises should control. However, blockchain is a new decentralized governance model. Let’s see where it takes us and what we can and should be done with it. It’s early. We are all still trying to figure it out.”