IOTA Foundation Selected to Develop European Blockchain Network

The IOTA Foundation was selected as one of seven contractors to design distributed ledger technology (DLT) for a European blockchain network.

Consequently, the IOTA Foundation will participate in the first phase of the EU blockchain pre-commercial procurement process. Participants will design new DLT solutions improving the scalability, energy efficiency and security of the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI). 

What is EBSI?

Founded in 2019 by the European Blockchain Partnership, EBSI’s ambition is to become the blockchain for Europe. It would do this by developing a network of nodes across Europe. These would enable cross-border services between governments, enterprises, and citizens. 

Ideally, this would improve the efficiency and trust of EU-wide transactions. Additionally, it would facilitate the mobility of citizens, enterprises, and goods. Some use cases for the project include digital management of educational credentials, audits trails, and SME financing. Other examples include data sharing among authorities, digital identification, and document traceability.

Being as EBSI intends to be the blockchain for Europe, the European Commission will run the network’s nodes at a European level. Meanwhile, member countries of the European Blockchain Partnership operate domestically. According to a recent survey by EuroNews, 60% of Europeans would prefer that their own governments draft regulations on cryptocurrencies, rather than the EU.

Why IOTA?

IOTA was chosen as the ideal technology to build upon because it could best support the vision of ledger-based secure transactions for an EU digital single market. More specifically, IOTA technology can facilitate EBSI’s stated goals of being scalable, open, decentralized, and interoperable. 

IOTA lack of fees also makes micropayments possible, which opens the network up to a broader potential audience. IOTA’s green credentials also drive scalability, and complements the EU’s goal of making Europe climate neutral by 2050. Because the network supports high-throughput and a large number of nodes, each Member State can run its own nodes.