The Internet Initiatives Development Fund has run a conference on the advanced trends in the implementation of blockchain in Russia. A number of blockchain projects have been presented at a Pitch Session.
The Conference schedule included three sessions. At the opening part “Blockchain, technological platforms and IoT” the participants discussed the blockchain technologies market and its new development trends all over the world. Marina Guryeva, Director of Innovations Office at the Higher School of Economics, speaking on the specifics of blockchain project funding said that Russian venture investments are mostly directed towards successful foreign startups. To change the situation and stimulate investments in Russian blockchain infrastructure, the state needs to give “a green light” to the technology.
Alexei Blagirev, Chief Data Officer at Otkritie Bank noted that the blockchain technology is in fact “a 5-month baby while we are trying to speculate already whether it will be an astronaut or a policeman.” Nevertheless, he mentioned that Otkritie is building a certain “pilot project” on the blockchain, the details to be announced soon.
Alexander Yakubov, curator of the FinNet working group at the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI), called upon blockchain entrepreneurs to reconsider what they regard as the most promising applications for blockchain. He believes the two main spheres of the technology implementation would be data and transaction registers and smart contracts.
The second part of the meeting featured a panel discussion “Blockchain Possibilities and Perspectives on the State Level” with representatives of regulators and state-owned companies. Rodion Shishkov, deputy director of the Post of Russia announced that blockchain will be integrated into one of their services – namely, parcel tracking (look here for more details). Ekaterina Frolovicheva, head of the Centre for Technological Innovation at Sberbank, noticed that after the initial hype the understanding of the real potential of blockchain in Russia I now turning more realistic. She suggested that, in the end, viable scenarios for blockchain application would be “counted on one hand.” Still, she added that at Sberbank they are currently considering at least three blockchain project concepts, which will be revealed later.
Almost all participants admitted the potential of distributed ledgers for state registries and its possible application for notarisation.
A Pitch Session for blockchain-based projects was the final part of the conference, where developers could present their work to potential customers – the government and state-owned companies.
Summing up the results, both the organisers and speakers noted that over the two months of preparatory work for the conference, the level of market comprehension of Russian blockchain community has increased several times.
Anna Lavinskaya
