US government to train foreign service officers on bitcoin

The U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has hinted that the government plans to train officers in embassies around the world about bitcoin.

Speaking at the Virtuous Circle Conference on 10th October, Kerry was asked about the presence of a “digital officer” at embassy sites in foreign nations.

When asked whether Foreign Service Officers should be able to speak with fluency about bitcoin and dark web the same way they do talk about international law today, Kerry responded, “Absolutely, yes.” Furthermore, when questioned whether the State Department is doing this training, Kerry said:

“Yes. That’s the curriculum we’ve put together. I mean, I haven’t asked — there’s a lot of uncertainty with Bitcoin or whatever…”

“I can’t tell you that every Foreign Service officer is being trained to the degree they ought to be but they’re all being made aware of this fundamental premise…”

US government has been taking interest in blockchain and distributed ledger technology for quite some time now. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been providing grants to blockchain projects. Also, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in July invited paper submissions on the topic of blockchain technology and its potential uses in the healthcare industry.