EUROPEAN COMMISSION INVESTS TO THE DISTRIBUTED LEDGER TECHNOLOGIES

17 Jan 2020
  • In the last two articles we addressed blockchain situation in Europe and European Commission positive treatment of blockchain technologies. They work actively on setting up Proof of Concepts, Pilot Projects and EU initiatives. Idea it to gather enough experience regarding development of Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) as well as legal and regulatory knowledge so they can make a positive environment for a new generation hyperscalers.

    Via H2020 program European Commission invested heavily into the development of blockchain. New week article Will cover this segment so far. Of interest are next areas:
    • - “e-identity and decentralised data management,
    • - healthcare and education,
    • - privacy and cybersecurity,
    • - IoT and smart homes,
    • - grids and cities,
    • - music and media,
    • - industrial technologies,
    • - environment and circular economy”
    Investments in the year 2020 that were allocated are bigger than 200 million Euros, this process is already finalized and money has been approved and allocated to blockchain related projects.

    There will be more investments during 2020 using program Work Programme 2020 but it will cover only funding for research and innovation..

    Competition Horizon Prize

    In september 2019 there was a competition under name "Blockchains for Social Good” Horizon Prize

    Concept of this competition is to have 5 awards each worth 1M Euros and to target project that are using DTL Technology for the purposes of social innovations in the next areas:
    • traceability of raw materials,
    • decentralised social networks,
    • transparency of public spending,
    • participation in democratic decision making,
    • financial inclusion

    Investments to the AI and DTL

    Funds planned to be assigned to VC funds and other investors, which invest in AI or DTL are:
    • 1) the 50 million euros provided by the Commission,
    • 2) the 100 million euros provided by the European Investment Fund euros
    European Commision expect that in reality these funds will be around 300 million euros or more, for investments in these key digital technologies. Reason of this number is planned is co-investment with National Promotional Banks which are expected to cover every euro provided by EC with their Euro.

    There are also plans to allocate 100 million euros directly to innovative SMEs, startups and small mid-caps in early and growth stages that develop AI or blockchain based services. This will be organised by European Commision doing co-investmenting with VC funds and other investors.

    Bonus Funding: Project 7th Jan 2020: Blockchain for eGov Services:

    Everyone is liable to give their solution to problems set by European Commision and access funding in this way.

    FIND OUT MORE: BLOCKCHAIN EGOV
    “Blockchain technology has enormous potential to enhance the way that citizens, governments, and businesses interact, by enhancing trust between entities and improving the efficiency of operations.

    The European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI) is a joint initiative from the European Commission and the European Blockchain Partnership (EBP) to deliver EU-wide cross-border public services using blockchain technology. The EBSI will be materialised as a network of distributed nodes across Europe (the blockchain), leveraging an increasing number of applications focused on specific use cases. In 2020, EBSI will become a CEF Building Block, providing reusable software, specifications and services to support adoption by EU institutions and European public administrations.

    Blockchain technology has great potential for governments and offers economic and political benefits.

    Blockchain architecture offers economic benefits. In IT, distributed infrastructure results in technical interoperability, high resilience, high availability, and high load capacity. Consensus protocols ensure high data availability and integrity of data. Advanced cryptography offers high security. A distributed data structure enforces semantic interoperability and distributed processing increases process interoperability. Regarding cost aspects, inbuilt support for economic "mechanism design" allows provisioning those IT benefits at the most economic price.

    Blockchain technology offers also political benefits. Infrastructure running blockchain software can be installed and operated in as many (or as few) MS as desire to join a given project, and each participating MS can run as many (or as few) nodes as desired

    Specific platforms offer sophisticated governance mechanics that can be configured to mirror the governance of the EU itself (unanimity or qualified-majority voting, etc.) Immutable data is shared among participants with configurable transparency. This increases the trust among participants (MS governments / agencies), participation and auditability by the citizens (hence trust). Last but not least, they increase the effectiveness of policy instruments by adding economic incentives (economic mechanism design)

    In order to study and to test the technology, DIGIT has performed the following actions:

    • - develop, implement and test one proof of concept: A Blockchain-Based Notary System
    • - develop, implement and test a private Blockchain network based on Ethereum POA protocol
    • - develop, implement and test a private Blockchain network based on STEEM protocol”
    Stay tuned!
    Aleksandar JELIC
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