A new U.S. public-benefits pilot is putting blockchain infrastructure into a very different role: not as a speculative asset platform, but as a potential payments and administrative layer for government assistance. The American Idea Foundation (AIF) and Digital Asset plan to support state RISE pilots using Digital Asset’s Canton network to combine benefit payments, automate eligibility-related rules and create a more traceable record of transactions.
The initiative, called RISE — Resources for Independence, Stability, and Employment, is designed to test whether state-administered benefits can be delivered through a more integrated digital payments infrastructure rather than through multiple programs with separate eligibility rules, reporting requirements and payment schedules.
The first pilots are expected to begin in the first quarter of 2027 across three states, subject to federal approvals. Broader deployments could follow if the initial programs demonstrate measurable improvements.
For Digital Asset, the project represents an expansion of Canton’s potential use beyond financial-market infrastructure. Canton is a privacy-oriented blockchain network designed for transactions between known participants, making it structurally different from public cryptocurrency networks such as Bitcoin or Ethereum.
In the RISE model, participating states could use Canton to coordinate programmable benefit rules, permissions and transactions. Benefits covering categories such as food, child care and cash could be combined into monthly or twice-monthly payments, while rules governing eligibility and spending would remain embedded in the system.
That distinction matters. The proposal is not simply to put government benefits “on a blockchain.” The underlying idea is to use distributed-ledger infrastructure as a shared transaction and audit layer connecting government agencies, nonprofit case managers, evaluators and potentially payment providers.
The American Idea Foundation, founded by former House Speaker Paul Ryan, is positioning RISE primarily as a policy experiment. The objective is to determine whether a consolidated benefit can reduce administrative complexity while also reducing the sharp benefit cliffs that can occur when household earnings change.
That problem is larger than the technology discussion. The U.S. Government Accountability Office has cited an Office of Management and Budget estimate that eligible Americans forgo more than $140 billion in federal benefits each year, partly because of the administrative burden involved in obtaining or retaining assistance.
RISE therefore targets two sides of the benefits equation: the recipient experience and government administration.
A household could potentially receive several forms of assistance through a unified payment mechanism, with benefits adjusting as employment or income changes. Government agencies, meanwhile, could receive a consolidated view of enrollment, eligibility decisions, payment status, spending and compliance activity.
The proposed architecture also reflects a growing trend in financial technology: programmable payments. Rather than treating a payment as a simple transfer of money from one account to another, programmable payment infrastructure can attach conditions governing when funds move, who can access them and what categories of transactions are permitted.
That concept is already gaining traction in financial services, where banks and market infrastructures are experimenting with tokenized deposits, programmable assets and blockchain-based settlement. Digital Asset has positioned Canton toward institutional applications where privacy, permissioning and interoperability are important.
The company now has an opportunity to demonstrate whether those same characteristics translate effectively into public-sector payments.
There are, however, significant hurdles. Government benefit programs are governed by legislation, federal funding rules, state-level administration and complex eligibility policies. A technology platform cannot eliminate those constraints. Nor does blockchain automatically solve questions around identity, data quality, fraud, cybersecurity or program design.
Privacy will be particularly important. A benefits platform could contain highly sensitive information about income, household composition, health-related eligibility, employment and spending. Canton’s permissioned architecture is intended to restrict access to authorized participants, but states will still need clear governance over who can access which information and under what circumstances.
The RISE proposal also places substantial emphasis on evaluation. Researchers and authorized agencies are expected to analyze employment and earnings, benefit utilization, education and training, housing stability and other measures of economic mobility. That creates the possibility of measuring the program as a technology and policy intervention rather than simply declaring blockchain adoption a success.
The approach has parallels with the broader evolution of digital public infrastructure. The World Bank says digital identity, payments and secure data-sharing systems are becoming foundational components of modern government service delivery. Its global program currently supports digital public infrastructure initiatives in more than 80 countries.
The OECD likewise reports that digital payments were available as a digital public-infrastructure component in 18 of 33 surveyed countries, while data-sharing systems were available in 28 and digital identity systems in 24.
For enterprise technology teams, the significance of RISE is less about blockchain itself and more about the architecture being tested. If successful, the model could demonstrate how government agencies can share a transaction layer without necessarily consolidating every underlying database or application.
That could become relevant to state CIOs, payment providers, fintech infrastructure companies and systems integrators exploring next-generation government-to-person payments (G2P).
The initial pilots will ultimately determine whether the concept moves beyond policy proposal. RISE must show that programmable benefits can coexist with privacy, accessibility, regulatory compliance and operational reliability — while delivering a better experience for recipients and better visibility for governments.
If it can, Canton would gain a notable new use case: blockchain infrastructure operating not at the edge of finance, but inside the machinery of public payments.
Market Landscape
The RISE initiative arrives as governments increasingly treat digital identity, digital payments, data interoperability and G2P infrastructure as core components of modern public services.
The World Bank estimates that 2 billion people in low- and middle-income countries remain uncovered or inadequately covered by social protection, highlighting the scale of the broader challenge around efficient benefit delivery. It also says that more than 865 million people in developing countries opened their first bank account during the COVID-19 pandemic to receive government benefits.
In the U.S., the competitive landscape is less about blockchain vendors and more about established government payment, eligibility and case-management infrastructure. Platforms from incumbent technology providers, payment processors and systems integrators already support Medicaid, SNAP, TANF and other programs.
Canton’s potential differentiation is its combination of permissioned blockchain, programmable transactions, privacy controls and shared auditability. Comparable conventional systems can provide many of these capabilities through databases and APIs, meaning RISE will need to demonstrate a practical advantage rather than simply technological novelty.
The World Bank’s own Funds Chain initiative offers an indication of where blockchain can be useful in government: creating traceability across organizations and improving visibility into how funds move.
For state technology leaders, the key question will therefore be whether blockchain reduces reconciliation, integration and oversight friction enough to justify introducing a new infrastructure layer.
Top Insights
- AIF and Digital Asset are testing RISE on Canton, combining state benefits into programmable payments while giving agencies stronger transaction visibility and auditability.
- The pilot targets fragmented safety-net administration, potentially simplifying food, child-care and cash benefits for households while reducing complexity for government agencies.
- Canton expands beyond traditional capital-markets use cases, demonstrating how permissioned blockchain could support government-to-person payments and regulated public infrastructure.
- Privacy and governance will be critical adoption barriers, because benefit systems handle sensitive household information that requires strict access controls and regulatory oversight.
- The first three-state rollout could establish a benchmark, showing whether blockchain-based benefit distribution delivers measurable improvements over conventional government payment infrastructure.
Get in touch with our fintech expert
