Russian Vice-Minister: Government Needs Blockchain Platform Focused On Stability

The Vice-Minister of the Russian Ministry for Telecom and Mass Communications (Minkomsvyaz) has stated that, in order for Blockchain technology to be adopted at the government level, it will be necessary to create a platform which does not involve mining, reports local news source RNS on March 1.

Vice-Minister Alexei Kozyrev stated at the beginning of the “Kritposredsa” forum, that the implementation of a Blockchain system would help solve the problem of long-term storage and protection of documents and forms of identification. He added that in order to meet these requirements, the platform should be “unified and universal”.

Kozyrev further explained his position:

“The existing solutions in Blockchain from an organizational point of view are very, very unstable. According to data from Tokendata, more than 50% of Blockchain platforms created have already gone bankrupt or disappeared. If we’re talking about how the government will adopt Blockchain, then obviously we cannot count on platforms which were created by commercial organizations, because these platforms are very, very unreliable. In this way we understand, that we need to create our own platform for Blockchain technology.”

The Russian government has already moved forward with Blockchain initiatives late last year. In early December, the government of Moscow began a pilot test on using Blockchain to improve its local voting systems and improve transparency in its “Active Citizen” initiative.

On Dec. 19, 2017, Russia’s state-run bank, Sberbank, announced a partnership with Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) to implement document transfer and storage via Blockchain.