RALEIGH — A new initiative is aimed at positioning North Carolina as a leader in the rapidly evolving worlds of blockchain and artificial intelligence.
The NC Blockchain + AI Initiative (NCB+AI), founded by former Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, is the state’s first dedicated advocacy and educational organization for the cutting-edge industries.
Per its launch release, NCB+AI seeks to make North Carolina the top state in the nation for blockchain and AI through targeted policy advocacy, industry alignment and a unified voice in the General Assembly. The group will operate as a 501(c)6 organization.
Blockchain Association Executive Vice President Dan Spuller will be the chairman of the board. The Blockchain Association is currently the largest blockchain advocacy organization in the country.
Blockchain is a tamper-resistant, shared digital ledger that eliminates with a structure that makes it extremely hard to cheat, fake entries or change history with no single person/company being fully in control of it.
The board also includes General Counsel and Technologist Lyle Gravatt, Fintech investor Eric Porper, national security and financial crimes expert John Bridge, and media and technology entrepreneur Alej Navia. Additionally, Patrick Riley will serve as director of operations.
NCB+AI’s effort builds on the 2019 NC Blockchain Initiative (NCBI) launched by Forest, which was one of the country’s first state-level task forces focused on blockchain technology, virtual assets, smart contracts and digital tokens.
That pioneering work helped position North Carolina as an early leader, including the 2016 passage of House Bill 289, which expanded the state’s Money Transmitters Act to cover bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies while exempting miners and certain software providers.
Forest, now a partner and senior government relations consultant at N.C. Capitol Strategies, calls NCB+AI “the next chapter.”
In an interview with North State Journal, Forest said the idea for the new initiative came from wanting to expand on NCBI by bringing together “two emerging technologies that are kind of taking the world by storm right now.”
Forest said NCB+AI wants to address issues iin the AI, crypto and blockchain space, which he said has been “really fragmented.”
“What we’re trying to do is be the unified voice where everybody can come and kind of have their voice heard,” said Forest. “And we can take note of that and do targeted advocacy for the things that everyone agrees on.”
Forest said their membership would be drawn from the relevant private sector industries. He said advocacy will focus on the General Assembly but also the county level “because counties are dealing with a lot of this energy usage conversation right now” around AI data centers and related technology energy consumption.
“And then we’re going to also be an education organization for all those and the general public as well,” Forest said, adding NCB+AI wants to get around the “fear factor” surrounding these topics and start “having conversations about the innovation that’s going to be generated from this and kind of move.”
Riley added that NCB+AI’s education activities will include roundtables around the state as well as advocacy days of action.
Underscoring the potential uses for blockchain, Forest used the example of permitting processes at different agencies such as getting a license from the Division of Motor Vehicles.
“This is a great place for the blockchain ledger to work and standardize it, make it instantaneous where, if you’ve checked all the boxes on your form, then you should instantaneously get that permit for that thing rather than sitting on a bureaucrat’s desk for ages,” said Forest.
Among priorities for NCB+AI is support for the federal Genius Act for stablecoins, establishing a state fintech sandbox, reforming data center permitting and developing a comprehensive blockchain-AI legislative blueprint.
The Genius Act creates a regulatory framework for payment stablecoins, requiring one-for-one backing by liquid assets and oversight to ensure consumer protection and financial stability.
Spuller, who served as co-chair of the original NCBI, affirmed a focus on stablecoin.
“We’re going to focus very strongly on stablecoin legislation, which is a very important topic right now,” Spuller said. “It needs to be addressed, and it needs to be fairly treated.”
Spuller also said prediction markets and event contracts would be key issues,.
“That’s a very, very important topic right now that we’re seeing nationally,” he said. “Anything related to improving efficiencies and helping state government improve their efforts through this technology is a priority for us, like it was during the task force era.”
Spuller explained that when President Donald Trump signed the Genius Act into law, it “legalized and provided regulations for stablecoins” and provided both federal and state routes for stablecoin issues,.
“So it’s now up to every state to create stablecoin frameworks for their state, and these states are off to the races,” said Spuller, citing Florida as having passed legislation last week, as well as Wyoming. “We want North Carolina to be a leader in this based on our strong history of financial services.
“I think the big angle, from my perspective, is this group wants to be the unified voice for the blockchain and AI industry in North Carolina from an industry business standpoint and then from a policy standpoint.”
The timing of the launch follows Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin issuer, establishing its U.S. dollar-backed USAT stablecoin operations in Charlotte, with former Trump crypto adviser Bo Hines at the helm.
NCB+AI’s launch comes amid broader state and federal shifts toward crypto-friendly policies.
State Treasurer Brad Briner, who has expressed interest in digital currencies, would likely be a part of the conversation, with Spuller noting Briner’s office “is very forward thinking.”
North Carolina was already ahead of the curve with SL 2024-48 (House Bill 690), banning state agencies from accepting central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) in line with Trump’s 2025 executive order. The law was enacted after overriding former Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto, which called the move “premature.”
