Japanese Securities Regulator Launches Blockchain Initiative

The Financial Services Agency (FSA), Japan’s premier regulator for securities, banking, and insurance, has announced the Blockchain Governance Initiative Network (BGIN) as a means of gathering stakeholders so they can broaden their understanding of the technology and implement it in a sustainable manner, as reported by Finextra, March 11, 2020.

New Blockchain Forum in Japan

Some corporations have been hesitant to take the first step toward blockchain and cryptocurrency adoption owing to a lack of clarity regarding their legality. So a regulator promoted initiative carries a lot of weight towards the legitimacy of blockchain in Japan.

The BGIN will serve as a platform for stakeholders to voice their concerns and converse to attain sustainable solutions for implementing blockchain. It will be a neutral venue for companies looking to adopt blockchain to gain a clearer understanding o the technology – its strengths and drawbacks alike.

Moreover, the BGIN will help provide blockchain academics with a strong base for presenting research in an open-source style forum.

Sovereign Blockchain Adoption

Countries across the globe have a positive outlook on blockchain; the same cannot be said about public ledger cryptocurrencies. Despite their ignorance regarding cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, they acknowledge the value of a trustless base layer.

Despite this, most central banks and governments are more interested in permissioned ledgers. This is because it allows them to block a majority of the world out of their network while creating a trustless environment between a few parties.

Corporate entities and governments are on the same page in this context. Both are focused on permissioned ledgers over their permissionless counterparts.

In the same way, governments don’t seem to be enthusiastic about issuing currency over a blockchain. Digital currencies like China’s DCEP absorb the innovation of digital currency without using a distributed ledger as the base. The ECB’s research project, EuroChain, is an example of digital currency that is being tested over a permissioned blockchain.

Taking all of this into account, when companies and governments speak of blockchain, they are most likely referring to permissioned chains as they do not want authority to spill over from their hands into the public’s. Japan’s blockchain initiative will likely promote permissioned chains.