After the bitcoin bust and a local bankruptcy, Washington county doubles down on blockchain

DOUGLAS COUNTY, Wash. -- Even as much of the world seems done with cryptocurrency, central Washington’s bitcoin boomtown is doubling down.

In Douglas County, where easy access to cheap hydropower sparked a cryptocurrency boom in 2017 – followed by a collapse in 2018 – local officials are betting that the high-speed computers and the complex “blockchain” technology that drove those digital currencies could now launch another, less volatile industry.

To accelerate that next phase, the county wants to build a “blockchain innovation campus,” where researchers could develop new uses for the esoteric, computer-intensive technology – and, ideally, position this rural community for a share of industry when it arrives.

“There is more to the cryptocurrency story than the boom and the bust,” says Lisa Parks, executive director of the Port of Douglas County, which hopes to locate the campus on an old industrial site in the city of Rock Island, on the Columbia River.

Read more here: https://www.theolympian.com/latest-news/article224611005.html