Wyoming Signs MoU With Medici To Store Land Records On Blockchain December 21, 2018

Wyoming Signs MoU With Medici To Store Land Records On Blockchain

A province in the blockchain-friendly state of Wyoming intends to place its land registry on a distributed ledger. Teton County (pop. 23,265 ), which consists of the town of Jackson and part of Yellowstone National Park, has inked a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Medici Land Governance (MLG).

The startup, which is mainly owned by Overstock.com’s blockchain investment division Medici Ventures, will create a fresh registry on the Open Index Protocol (OIP). The new platform will follow all land transactions, such as mortgages, liens releases and comparable documents, beginning in 1996, Overstock said in a press release Thursday, adding that it will conserve active privacy protection and public access.

The press release says

“The title information that is obscured for viewing on the current system will also be obscured from the blockchain-based system, but all public records will be available at the county clerk’s office.”

Sherry Daigle, Teton County’s County Clerk said “We are proud to see Wyoming lead the way in implementing cutting-edge technologies, such as blockchain, into existing markets like land registry.” The press release also stated that if the new system succeeds, it can be expanded into other Wyoming counties.

OIP indexes records from storage or distribution systems like IPFS and others utilizing the Florincoin blockchain.

OIP co-founder Devon James told “I’d heard Wyoming was working to proactively welcome blockchain and I wanted to support their efforts. I began attending Blockchain Task Force meetings and contributing to their public discussions, but I was particularly interested in their ‘Real Property Records on Blockchain’ initiative because the specification we’ve been working on for almost 5 years …is a worldwide public database where anyone can publish, read, display, sell or audit the records, making it a perfect fit for their use case.”

According to Caitlin Long, co-founder of the Wyoming Blockchain Coalition and ex-chairman of the company blockchain startup Symbiont, the venture started as an initiative of state senator Ogden Driskill, who brought quite a lot of county clerks and James to the desk to negotiate the collaboration.

Wyoming intends to turn out to be a leader among states in backing blockchain technology for a while: in March, the governor signed a bill exempting utility tokens with certain properties from securities regulations, and of late a reiteration of similar bills was presented.

There are a total of six bills on blockchain guideline now waiting to be considered during the subsequent legislative session in January, Long said. “These bills have been endorsed by joint committees and have increased chances of passing. There will be more. This in an industry where nobody has leadership, and Wyoming moved to grab it.”

Long trusts that the land initiative will be followed by others and the subsequent action for the state will be to incorporate blockchain on all its corporate enrollment and business documents.

Earlier this year, Medici Land Governance announced a trial with the Zambia government to build a blockchain land registry for the African country. Medici Ventures possesses 57% of the startup and Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock, owns the balance.