The State of Delaware awarded IBM $738,000 to create a blueprint for their blockchain based corporate filing system.

Delaware is a haven for businesses – with over 1,000,000 registered, it is home to more than 66% of fortune 500 companies. Automating the filing process means that Delaware could cut out the manual labor that it takes to process these businesses requests.

This week IBM successfully closed two deals with government bodies for the adoption of blockchain technology.

Two very exciting wins for @IBMBlockchain in government this week! The first for data security w/ the Austrailian government: https://t.co/0Omk9F3ydo The second for a corporate filing system w/ the state of Delaware: https://t.co/TfHqa5XoZH#blockchain #government #security — David McElroy (@DavidMcElroyIII) July 6, 2018

In May 2016, Governor Jack Markell of the US State Delaware announced a new initiative to embrace blockchain technology and apply it to the state of Delaware’s manual tasks.

One of the first projects that the state will use blockchain for is adding all of the state’s public archives to a blockchain for easy public access and to secure the records. The State paid IBM to develop this blockchain solution but never launched the archive. While Governor Jack Markell had a very eager approach to blockchain, new Governor John Carney seemed to be slowing down the projects according to Andrea Tinianow:

“Delaware was out in front, and now they’ve slowed it down….It’s like somebody pushed the pause button.”

Modernizing Government to Support Blockchain

After seemingly canceling the archival project, Delaware announced in August 2017 that they will allow companies to keep their corporate records on the blockchain. By doing so, companies can maintain accurate records of shareholders and votes that they cast during company elections or polls.

As Francis Pileggi, a corporate litigator in Delaware, puts it:

“The enabling legislation is designed to permit the use of a particular technology to maintain corporate records in a way that addresses a problem with the current system, especially for larger companies with millions of stockholders, for example, about who owns the stock and how they voted in a merger.”

With the permittance of blockchain record keeping, Delaware is looking to build their own blockchain in which they can automate the filling of paperwork from businesses. The contract they awarded IBM will be used to build and test a blockchain network that can replace the current filling process that businesses must go through.