Dutch ministry commissions national blockchain research

The Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs has commissioned the creation of a national blockchain research agenda.

The agenda was presented by the ambassador of the Dutch Blockchain Coalition and outlines three key areas: technology, legal issues, economic impact and ethics. The first of these covers the question of trust: individuals’ trust in the veracity and security of information on the blockchain; and trust in the technological dependability of the ledger, as well as correct smart contracts.
The second area addresses sustainability, raising the need for a “techno-economic” analysis of energy consumption costs, scalability, and resilience against power concentration or hostile takeovers.
And thirdly, the agenda points to governance of the blockchain, in terms of managing the technology’s evolution and the emergence of blockchain infrastructure and services. Moreover, it also raises issues such as provisions for “privacy (including the right to be forgotten) and (self-sovereign) identity management,” which appear to be shaped by the context of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws, which came into effect on May 25, 2018.

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