Russia’s VEB and Ethereum seal partnership
The partnership is poised to help find applications of blockchain, inter alia, in public administration.
Russian businesses continue to embrace various distributed ledger technologies. The latest news in this respect comes from the Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs (Vnesheconombank), which on Tuesday announced the launch of a partnership with the Ethereum Foundation.
The partnership will see both organizations collaborate on various projects involving distributed ledger technologies and the Ethereum platform. Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum, noted that one of the goals of the partnership is to explore and develop application for using blockchain technologies in public administration. The process of adapting these technologies to the needs of the state enterprises in Russia is also set to accelerate.
Ethereum has been making significant strides in various business segments in Russia. In July this year, Alfa-Bank and airline S7 said they were teaming up on a project that will allow selling of flight tickets based on the Ethereum blockchain. According to the bank, one of the major advantages of such a move is the fast processing of payments. This announcement came shortly after the announcement by Russia’s main airline – Aeroflot-Rossiyskiye Avialinii PAO (MCX:AFLT), which invited proposals for the implementation of crypto-currencies and related technologies in its operations.
Blockchain technologies are increasingly attracting the attention of Russian businesses and authorities. The latter are seeking to explore ways of fitting this new type of solutions into some regulatory framework. Although such a legal framework does not exit in Russia at this point, these technologies are not in any way restricted or banned.
Earlier this month, Russia’s Federal Agency on Technical Regulating and Metrology (also known as Rosstandart) said it was forming a new tech committee on the standardization of DLT and blockchain. The committee will deal with issues such as the architecture standards, areas of application and requirements for the software based on DLT and blockchain. Issues of security and confidentiality will also be on the agenda of the new committee.
