Wednesday 29 June 2016 3:00 pm

Hillary Clinton has backed public service blockchain applications as part of her technology manifesto

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton backed blockchain in her Initiative on Technology & Innovation, released on Monday.

Clinton, who according to the Associated Press has won enough support to secure the Democratic Party's nomination, announced she would back the distributed public ledger technology if she became president, as part of a wider strategy to promote innovation and ensure the US remains a global tech leader.

Clinton said:

We must position American innovators to lead the world in the next generation of technology revolutions – from autonomous vehicles to machine learning to public service blockchain applications – and we must defend universal access to the global, digital marketplace of ideas.

Clinton's technology manifesto also detailed how she would increase access to capital growth to small businesses and startups, defer student loans to help young entrepreneurs and pledged to ensure all US households would have the option of affordable broadband by 2020.

She also said a Clinton government would provide every public school student in America with access to computer science education.

In July last year, then-Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry said he supported "regulatory breathing room" for cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin in an interview with The New York Observer, while Senator Rand Paul also said he would accept bitcoin donations towards his Republican campaign.

Blockchain is most widely known as the technology that underpins cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. It works as a decentralised, secure public ledger of transactions shared by a network of users.

As such, it can also be used to store data in other contexts, such as healthcare and other public services.

Santander is already using blockchain technology, along with a range of other banks.