Moscow’s government is using Ethereum to increase the efficiency of allotting trading spots during the city’s major farmers market. The system will use Ethereum’s network to manage and allot trading spots and applications for the highly competitive Moscow farmers market.

Moscow’s farmer market is highly competitive, with 20,000 applicants submitting bids for a mere 2,736 land plots. Ethereum’s network will be used to record applications by farmers coming from multiple nations, including Russia, Armenia, and Belarus, who are looking to sell goods and produce between April 20th and November 25th.

In addition to recording the applications by farmers, Ethereum’s blockchain network will also be used to manage the approval/denial of applications, based on a variety of factors. Andrey Borodyonkov, the blockchain product manager at Moscow city hall, spoke about the new use of Ethereum, saying:

“Blockchain is an additional guarantee that the incoming applications remain immutable as well as makes the audit of the application history possible.”

Another benefit of using blockchain is that the review and approval process will be significantly more efficient, and farmers will have more time to plan for the markets based on the ruling on their application.

Andrey Belozerov, the innovation advisor to Moscow’s City Hall’s CIO, claims that the new system will also make information regarding decisions more publicly transparent, saying:

“We believe that farmers should have a transparent system to see why their application is declined or approved. Blockchain is to make sure that the process is fully transparent, and no one can alter an application. We hope that blockchain will provide full transparency for everyone.”

Moscow has been moving quickly to implement blockchain technology in an effort to increase the efficiency and transparency of the government. In a statement from the city’s government, they emphasized the importance of transparency, saying:

“The entire dataset is publicly viewable, transparent and available for download. In that case, submission time can be confirmed, while the application cannot be deleted or altered by someone once it is submitted.”

The government first began working with blockchain in 2016 and developed their first blockchain development division in 2018.