Many of the government leaders queried by IBM in a recent survey say they want to put blockchain to work in the public sector.

Out of 200 government executives from 16 different countries worldwide polled, 14% say they expect to utilize production-grade blockchains sometime this year. Forty-eight percent anticipate launches of their own between now and 2020. The remaining 38% indicated that they would take a wait-and-see approach, putting off their own use of the tech until past 2020.

Among the use cases cited in the report, asset management and identity management were cited as the most compelling by government leaders. Of those looking to integrate blockchain into their government services in the next year, 45% said they want to invest in asset management capabilities, with another 45% highlighting digital identity as a key area of investment.

Overall, the results indicate a bullish sentiment on blockchain use for government services.

As IBM noted in its survey report:

“For example, nine in ten government organizations plan to invest in blockchain for use in financial transaction management, asset management, contract management and regulatory compliance by 2018. And seven in ten government executives predict blockchain will significantly disrupt the area of contract management, which is often the intersection of the public and private sectors.”

In a way, the survey results reinforce some of the news developments seen over the past year.

For example, the government in the UK began testing a blockchain-based welfare payments system last year – though some privacy advocates voiced criticism at the time. In early 2016, the UK Government Office for Science pressed other agencies to consider how to apply the tech to their own practices.

Elsewhere, government offices in Russia and Dubai, among other places, have explored applications of their own.

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