On a ranch in northern Wyoming, not far from the Belle Fourche river, a few hundred calves are making history. They are being tagged and castrated and branded with irons, as is normal, a couple of months after birth. But what is new is that their IDs are now logged on a blockchain: part of a push by America’s least populated and most minerals-dependent state to position itself at the front of the “crypto” revolution.

According to ranch owner, Ogden Driskill, blockchain technology can help to capture and preserve value along every step of the supply chain. He says that if he can prove to the ultimate buyer that these are open-range cattle, reared on sunshine and grass in cowboy country — rather than a cramped pen — he can get a premium of up to $700 per head, or almost 30 per cent.

“We always had a superior product but it would always get blended in, like if you sold Volkswagens with Cadillacs and Mercedes,” says the beef rancher, 59, who was elected as a Republican member of the Wyoming Senate seven years ago. “This gives us a chance for our quality to stand on its own.”