Key messages of EU Blockchain Week 2021
European Blockchain Week 2021, with more than 120 panellists, 25 panels, workshops and roundtables, and more than 1,200 participants from 86 countries, was one of the soundest events in the framework of the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the European Union. Below you can find some of the key messages of the event summed up by the organisers.
- The enhanced application of advanced digital technologies in Slovenia and Europe, with the purpose of strengthening the resilience within the green and digital economy and society, are the main objectives followed by Next Generation EU and the European Green Deal.
- Showcasing the leading role of Slovenia in the area of blockchain technologies and AI, while at the same time creating a stronger blockchain ecosystem, which is important in the field of transfer of knowledge, the development and application of technological solutions, and the creation of regulatory solutions to adapt legislation to the requirements of new technologies.
- Deployment of advanced digital technologies shall not remain solely in the domain of SMEs and startups, but shall also play an important role in the transformation of large and traditional companies, which transform their business processes in cooperation with SMEs and startups.
- The opportunity to strengthen the commitment on the use of advanced digital technologies in Slovenia and the EU was highlighted, as it is expected that in the period after the COVID-19 pandemic the use of such technologies will enable faster economic and social recovery; the conference brought up the conclusion that blockchain and AI are here to stay and significantly contribute to the European Green deal, predominantly in the areas of energy efficiency, circular economy, mitigation of climate change and achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals – SDG 2030.
- Strengthening policy dialogue in certain areas of intervention and integrating blockchain and AI solutions into EU strategic and policy documents is an important tool in the design and implementation of common European legislation on blockchain based eID, self sovereign identity, and a digital finance package based on DLT/blockchain technology.
In the field of blockchain ecosystems there is ongoing transfer of knowledge and supporting activities for blockchain projects, and various forms of startup engagement have been developed. While ecosystems must be further strengthened on the European level and globally, there is an opportunity for cross-border and cross-region cooperation, which can be enabled through interregional partnerships, such as the EU-Africa partnership on the stakeholder level, and interoperable infrastructure on the technological level, such as integrated national blockchain infrastructures and upgrading of European blockchain services infrastructure.
European Blockchain Pre-Commercial Procurement
The consortium formed by Dyne.org, RIDDLE&CODE and InfoCert, has been selected by the European Commission as one of seven contractors to develop the next version of the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI).
The award is one more milestone in the consortium's track record of excellence with cryptography and blockchain, after Dyne.org led the flagship H2020 project DECODE, RIDDLE&CODE's blockchain solutions are deployed in banking and utility markets Europe wide and InfoCert being the largest Certification Authority at European level and eIDAS certified QTSP.
The European Commission's vision for EBSI is to leverage distributed ledger technologies to create international and intra-communautaire services for public administrations. The European Blockchain Partnership aims to scale the investment fund to a fully developed platform with up to €2 billion in funding.
The consortium led by the non-profit foundation Dyne.org is developing a multilayered network of blockchains for distributed secure execution of smart contracts, including edge-computing scenarios deployed on low-power embedded devices and chips. The blockchain-agnostic solution offers compatibility with a wide range of products to grant freedom of choice to participating member states and solution developers. Existing integrations include BigchainDB, Ethereum, Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger Sawtooth and Bitcoin.
Dyne.org's Zenroom is the core component of the solution. Its portable and secure smart-contract execution environment works standalone (zero dependency) even in a web browser. It can be programmed in a language similar to plain English and guarantees to be functional and portable for two decades to come. Dr. Francesca Bria, president of the Italian National Innovation Fund Cassa Depositi e Prestiti comments: "Zenroom stands for Citizen Crypto. It is a core part of the DECODE tech stack for Smart Cities and it makes it easy to understand the complexity of data transformation while being compatible with any platform, including Legacy Infrastructure. We make Crypto for Citizens and we make it Open Source."
Each member of this consortium gathers together a mature experience developing and deploying industrial standards, as well as facilitating open source community adoption of technologies, including the presence in major blockchain standardisation initiatives such as ISO TC/307, INATBA, W3C and Sovrin.
The combination of blockchain-specific hardware solutions for critical infrastructures, developed by RIDDLE&CODE, will help turn data sources into trusted ones and lay the foundation for EBSI's automated processes and scalability. The combination of InfoCert's leadership and scale when providing services for digital trust, security and identity management complying with standards will allow Europe to adopt mature blockchain solutions to mission-critical environments.
For the initial phase of EBSI's procurement, the consortium proposes a revolutionary solution for a European Digital Product Passport. As a path to success, the consortium plans to work actively to create an open "playing field" in Europe that can easily integrate a diversity of solutions and open this promising industrial field to new players from the public and private sectors.
Upcoming Events – Save the Date!
Democracy4all International Conference
The Democracy4all international conference has been held annually since 2019. It brings together talent, experts and policymakers to share and discuss the latest advances in technology and regulation. Its orientation makes it a unique event in the world because it focuses on the use of the blockchain as an instrument of democratic improvement in terms of social, corporate and individual governance.
It offers Catalonia the opportunity to host the most important international conclave for political actors and institutions everywhere, and contributes to speeding up the dialogue between government bodies and new technologies.
For this year’s event EUBOF is a proud co-organiser and supporter, hosting 3 workshops to present the latest reports prepared by the Observatory:
• Central Bank Digital Currencies and a Euro for the Future
• Demystifying NFTs
• Energy Efficiency of Blockchain Technologies
Visit the Conference Website and book your tickets!
EUBOF Publications
“Blockchain technology is secured and maintained by a vast network of miners to solve increasingly-complex computational problems. It's important that clean-energy technology is used to satisfy the rising blockchain ecosystem's usage needs."
"This surging demand for cryptocurrencies and accelerating adoption of blockchain-based solutions have highlighted a critical issue: the technology's growing energy consumption and its impact on our climate."
The Energy Efficiency of Blockchain Technologies report is finally out.
Upcoming EUBOF Publications
Two more reports are scheduled for the months to come!
• “Demystifying NFTs” is expected to be published in October 2021
• “Blockchain Applications for Healthcare and combating COVID-19” is expected to be published in November 2021
• “Blockchain applications in the Energy Sector” is expected to be published in December 2021
• “EU Blockchain Ecosystem developments – updated version” is planned to be published in January 2022.
Stay tuned for more updates!
Other Publications
Are you interested in finding out about the blockchain market characteristics? Read the Chaise project report Study on Blockchain labour market characteristics and check out the:
- Registry of Blockchain educational and training offerings
- Registry of Blockchain job vacancies
Map of Blockchain Education and Training Initiatives
We are proud to present our new website functionality, offering a mapping of existing Blockchain training and educational initiaves in Europe and the world! We invite all organisations offering such training or educational programmes to provide information on their initiatives by completing a simple online form. All entries will be reviewed by our team in terms of relevance and completeness of information and will then be made available on the map.
Users will be able to trace down relevant information on training and education offering based on specific criteria, including country, language, type of courses offered, type of certification, etc.
Visit our website and find out more!
Forum
Inputs from the community have a major role in shaping these publications. Conversations are happening every day between the members of the eublockchain.mobilize.io community.
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Details
- Publication date
- 19 October 2021