Russia Begins Work on Developing Blockchain Standards

Russia’s national standards authority is working toward the standardization of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies.

Russia’s Federal Agency for Technical Regulation and Metrology, also known as Rosstandart, has announced the formation of a new technical committee tasked toward the standardization of “the software and hardware of distributed register and blockchain technologies”.

In its announcement, the Rosstandart adds that blockchain technology is “actively spreading” in its adoption across the Russian Federation.

“Blockchain is a digital platform that records and verifies transactions in a public and secure manner based on decentralized solutions,” reads a loosely translated excerpt from the statement. “Initially appearing as technologies that facilitate the mechanisms of cryptocurrencies, blockchain technologies are finding more and more fields of application around the world. In recent years, these technologies are quite actively spreading in the Russian Federation.”

On a global scale, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) – commonly seen as the primary global standards authority – appointed Australia to lead an international technical committee with 35 ISO member nations to develop a uniform approach to introduce global standards for the technology. Earlier this year in March, Standards Australia unveiled its roadmap to develop these international standards, overseen by technical committee 307 or ISO/TC 307.

Russia’s standards authority references these developments at the ISO whilst adding that it “abstained” from joining ISO/TC 307 at the time of its formation. However, the Russian Federation is now among 20 participating members of the committee. The newly established Russian technical committee will also presuppose international cooperation with the ISO committee.

The move by the national standards authority to explore the standardization of blockchain technologies comes at a time when the Russian government is actively considering the introduction of regulations for the decentralized technology in 2019. Herman Gref, chief executive of Sberbank – Russia’s largest bank by assets – has predicted blockchain technology to see commercial applications on a nationwide scale in two years.