Australia allocates $5.3M to blockchain pilots

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The Australian government has allocated A$6.9 million (US$5.3 million) to study the role blockchain technology can play in regulation. The funds will go to two pilots looking into reducing the cost of regulatory compliance through blockchain integration.

As per a report by ZDNet, the government granted the money to the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources. As the department told the Senate, it will, in turn, allocate the money to two blockchain pilot projects. The two will be seeking to prove that blockchain can reduce the cost of regulatory compliance.

Tim Bradley, the general manager of the department’s Emerging Technologies and Adoption Division remarked, “We’re developing the guidelines for those now, but, of the two pilots, one will be around the issue of critical minerals and the other will be designed around food and beverage provenance.”

The two pilots will demonstrate the feasibility of blockchain technology in the Australian public sector, Bradley added, stating, “It is designed to demonstrate the benefits that technology can bring and help bring along changes amongst regulatory culture.”

Blockchain technology has made its biggest impact in the financial services industry, Bradley observed. However, it’s extending to other sectors, both in the private and public sectors. These include traceability, provenance and verification. He believes it’s time blockchain revolutionized the regulatory compliance sector.

Indeed, blockchain technology has already started impacting the regulatory technology (regtech) sector. kompany is one of the firms leading the integration of blockchain in regtech. The firm has been changing compliance, availing real-time business KYC on-chain to Bitcoin SV. Having started off on the Ethereum blockchain, kompany migrated to Bitcoin SV as it’s the only blockchain network with unbounded scalability, very low fees and real-time transactions.

Bradley believes that the Aussie government is doing a great job in integrating blockchain. One of the foremost initiatives is the Australian Public Sector Blockchain Network, a forum his department helped create. He described it as a space for the public sector to discuss how they can take advantage of blockchain technology in their day-to-day activities.

He told the outlet, “I think that’s been quite a successful initiative that we were able to launch at the end of last year, bringing through a number of agencies—not just those that are in the finance sector but from the education area, health, IP Australia, and a range of agencies that are quite popular.”