September 2021 Newsletter

News and Updates

News

Anti-counterfeiting Blockathon blockchain-based project

The Anti-counterfeiting Blockathon Infrastructure Design Contest is open until 30 September 2021.

The objective is to design a blockchain-based compliance infrastructure that authenticates products and exchange data between all parties in the supply chain. Its protocol would support the recording of goods scanned by manufacturers, logistics operators, customs and other enforcement authorities.

The combination of product identification, tokenisation, serialisation and the cryptographic safeguards of blockchain will provide a substantial increase in anti-counterfeiting measures.

The authentication platform will interconnect products’ ‘track and trace’ solutions with the risk analysis systems of enforcement authorities and existing EUIPO tools (TMview, DesignView, IP Enforcement Portal (IPEP) and IP Register in Blockchain).

The dedicated website has also been updated.

Finally, this blockchain-based tool will be part of the upcoming Commission’s EU Toolbox against counterfeiting.

EU Blockchain Week 2021- Policy Dialogue: Regulating the decentralized - approaches and opportunities

The EU Blockchain Observatory and Forum will organise a policy debate on 23 September at the EU Blockchain Week organised by the Slovenian presidency of the Council of the European Union. Audience can submit their questions to the panel about EU blockchain policy developments before the debate. Selected questions of highest interest and relevance will be tackled during the debate. You can submit your questions in the form below until September 20th.

Save the date for attending the policy dialogue: Thursday, the 23rd of September, from 17:00 - 18:00 CET.

Policy discussions around blockchain are being held around the world in parallel to discourse on new applications and innovations around decentralized technologies, and Europe is one of the major stakeholders and initiators of such debates. With this panel we want to bring the discussion forward, consider challenges and opportunities and try to answer some of the major questions regarding regulation of and support for blockchain developments.

Some European countries introduced their first policies on the subject in the recent years: Malta that introduced a comprehensive regulatory framework in 2018; Liechtenstein with its 2019 Blockchain Act; Germany that adopted a federal blockchain strategy the same year; and several other European governments that put effort into developing their own frameworks, including Estonia, France, Sweden, and others.

On top of these initiatives there is the overarching ambition of European institutions to provide an EU-wide harmonised framework that would allow for more legal certainty and support innovation in the space, such as the revisited proposal for a Regulation on Markets in Crypto-assets and considerations around central bank digital currencies.

During this session, we will discuss the developments and future directions regulation of decentralised technologies could take in Europe, with a focus on 1) digital finance package and 2) eIDAS. You can submit questions relevant to these two topics and the context of this debate below until 24 September. Selected, most intriguing and most commonly asked questions will be incorporated in the debate. Submit your questions in the form and we will make sure to pass them on to policy makers for answering!

Upcoming Events – Save the Date! European Blockchain Week 2021

The EU Blockchain Observatory and Forum has partnered with the Slovenian Presidency for the organisation of the European Blockchain Week 2021

#SaveTheDate 20.-24.9.2021 for the European Blockchain Week 2021: #Blockchain and #AI of #European #Green #Deal - Hybrid Edition in framework of Slovenian 🇸🇮 Presidency of the of the Council of EU. Read more information on the series of events planned from Monday the 20th till Friday the 24th of September, and Register to attend!

Take a look at the agenda below:

Day 1 - Monday 20.9.2021

• Slovenian - Hungarian Blockchain Business Forum European Blockchain Service Infrastructure Piloting EU Financial Ecosystems for Blockchain & AI: Public and Private Investments
• EU Blockchain Ecosystems

Day 2 - Tuesday 21.9.2021

• EU Blockchain Summit: Blockchain & AI for European Green Deal
• Convergence of Blockchain with AI and IoT Blockchain and AI for Climate Change

Day 3 - Wednesday 22.9.2021

• Blockchain & AI for Circular Economy Semantic web and Blockchain
• The Blockchain marketplace and NFTs Blockchain and AI for Renewable

Energy Day 4 - Thursday 23.9.2021

• Blockchain & AI for SDGs
• Decentralised Digital Identity Blockchain & AI and The future of work Sustainable blockchain infrastructures
• EU Blockchain Policy Dialogue Africa - Europe Blockchain Dialogue

Day 5 - Friday 24.9.2021

• Blockchain technology through Slovenian use cases MICA/DEFI regulation

Upcoming 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 coming out soon.

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!

Blockchain initiatives and projects in a map!

Are you aware of any blockchain related initiatives or projects in your country? Are you the owner of any initiative or project related to blockchain?

Provide the relevant information by simply filling in this form and put your project in the map! Initiatives include: startups, non for profit organisations, academic research, open source projects, consortium, government or corporate initiatives, foundations and other.

Find out more by visiting our website.

Forum

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