美国国家公共电台 NPR From Believeland To Blockland — Cleveland Aims To Be A Tech Hub

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From Believeland To Blockland — Cleveland Aims To Be A Tech Hub

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Cleveland, Ohio, is moving to update its image and its economy. The city known for old-line industries, Lake Erie, LeBron James and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame wants to make itself a center of blockchain technology, the software behind cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. Here's Jeff St. Clair of member station WKSU.

JEFF ST CLAIR, BYLINE¹: Believeland was Cleveland's catchphrase when, in 2016, LeBron James and the Cavaliers delivered the city's first sports championship in half a century. Now LeBron is gone, and Clevelanders may be looking for something new to believe in. Bernie Moreno thinks that should be embracing Cleveland as a tech town. Moreno is a blockchain evangelist and luxury car dealer² who is quick to resist a sports comparison.

BERNIE MORENO: I know LeBron James, and I'm no LeBron James (laughter), OK? So let's get that out of the way.

ST CLAIR: Moreno is trying to marshal his salesmanship skills to promote Cleveland as a center for blockchain innovation.

MORENO: If you're going to have a blockchain startup, this is the place you'd do it. If you're going to invest in blockchain startups, this is the place I would invest in. And if you're a developer, you're a student who wants to do blockchain development, Cleveland's the place where you would do it.

ST CLAIR: Blockchain is basically a digital lockbox that stores any kind of transaction in a secure block that's shared across independent computers. It's the technology behind the cryptocurrency Bitcoin but is quickly transitioning to other uses, like digital home deeds, municipal bonds...

MORENO: Digital car titles. There's digital driver's licenses³, birth certificates, college degrees, medical records.

ST CLAIR: One Cleveland startup is even testing a blockchain-based voting app. Hilary Carter is managing director of the Blockchain Research Institute in Toronto, a think tank laying out road maps for business uses of the technology.

HILARY CARTER: Cleveland stepped up to be the very first city outside of Canada to want access to the thought leadership that we're creating at the BRI.

ST CLAIR: Here's what Moreno says it would take to build Blockland. The city would need to attract around 1,000 software developers to the region who will help launch a couple dozen blockchain-based startups. He's planning to open a 100,000-square-foot downtown campus to incubate those companies, complete with a K-12 school.

MORENO: We call the school Genesis because in the blockchain world, genesis is the first block in the blockchain.

ST CLAIR: Moreno has also put together a dream team of Cleveland's civic⁴ leaders to help organize the Blockland Cleveland conference in December. Suzanne Rivera is vice⁵ president of research at Case Western Reserve University and likes the ambitious idea.

SUZANNE RIVERA: I really think of it as a movement. This is going to be the way of the future. We can either let it pass us by, or we can seize this opportunity.

ST CLAIR: But many here struggle with understanding blockchain itself and its potential benefits.

WAVERLY WILLIS: It's regular, blue-collar guys that's saying, why do I need to know about this stuff? And so you need a person like me to be able to explain it.

ST CLAIR: Waverly Willis is the first barber in Cleveland to accept bitcoin as payment and an early backer of the Blockland project. He says Cleveland needs a plan that goes beyond the city's CEOs and academic leaders to lift people in his neighborhood. Bernie Moreno agrees.

MORENO: This whole thing works when the average citizen of Cleveland is dramatically smarter than the average citizen anywhere else relative to blockchain technology.

ST CLAIR: From Believeland to Blockland, it's a technology Hail Mary of sorts from a city competing to stake its claim as a blockchain capital. For NPR News, I'm Jeff St. Clair.