The European Commission has announced the regulators involved in its blockchain sandbox initiative. On September 30, the European Blockchain Sandbox Initiative (EBSI) revealed 41 authorities from 22 countries. This includes nations in the European Union and the European Economic Area.
Countries involved in the initiative include France, Spain, The Netherlands, Italy, Greece, and others, such as Germany, Portugal, and Poland. This diverse involvement shows a great interest in the technology behind blockchain.
The EBSI envisages the promotion of distributed ledger technology (DLT). It provides blockchain projects with a mechanism to interact with the regulators. The purpose is to define legal concerns and find solutions to them.
EBSI Promotes Legal Clarity for Blockchain Innovations
According to the European Commission, the sandbox will assist the regulators in comprehending other sophisticated blockchain solutions. They noted, “The Sandbox will create a platform for regulators and supervisors to improve their understanding of advanced blockchain technology solutions.”
Further, the initiative offers legal consultancy and informs about the requirements and rules in a protected environment. The EBSI is dedicated to providing 20 blockchain use case projects annually. These will include business maturity and legal relevance and other considerations will be used to determine which projects to take on. They will also reflect on the EU policy agenda. Some selected projects will be offered legal consultancy from the law firm Bird & Bird. Further, they will be able to debate regulatory issues with the authorities.
On June 13, the EBSI revealed the names of enterprises selected for the second batch. These companies will get involved with different applications. They include things such as tokenising tangible assets and establishing blockchain-based digital IDs. One of the projects is Iota which is an open-source distributed ledger. Iota said that its identity solution has benefited from being chosen for the EBSI. This raises questions about the KYC rules and privacy in Web3.
Overall, the EBSI is a significant advancement. It supports blockchain technology at the same time it ensures that there is legal certainty in Europe. Through the EBSI, it intends to resolve legal issues and promote new projects to ensure legal clarity on DLTs is provided. Notable participants such as Iota, underline the role of the initiative for the future of blockchain in Europe and the initiative’s contribution to the economic growth of the sector.
