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CIA’s New Research Lab to Study Blockchain

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) launched a new research and develop laboratory on Monday that features blockchain technology among its focus areas.

  • CIA Labs’ webpage said the labs will research “distributed ledger/blockchain-enabled technologies” alongside other tech stacks: wireless telecommunications, quantum computing, artificial intelligence and data analytics, to name a few.

  • Officers who develop tech inventions in the lab will be permitted to patent, disclose and partially profit from their work, according to MIT Technology Review.

  • MIT’s reporting notes the labs will give CIA a useful incentive to woo tech talent that might otherwise turn to Silicon Valley’s giants.

  • That the CIA, one of the U.S. intelligence community’s two code-breaking hubs, would take an interest in researching a technology secured by cryptography should come as no surprise to observers.

  • The Block first reported CIA Labs’ blockchain focus.

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