‘Blockchains’ and ‘Distributed Ledger Technologies’ are regarded as belonging to the most important innovations of the last 50 years.[1] They are perceived as being revolutionary and being capable of creating lasting changes in whole business ecosystems.[2] Furthermore, they represent a new standardisation area on a national, European and international level. Based on this, the creation of a new ISO committee dealing with the topic “Blockchain and electronic distributed ledger technologies” (TC 307) was initiated in the summer of 2016. The following action items were proposed: development of international blockchain standards covering key technical aspects: terminology; process and method; IT privacy; cyber security; interoperability; and other key technical aspects of blockchain, (see [3]). BlockOne addresses the areas terminology, process, method and cyber security and will provide the Technical Committee with two specifications based on a national fast track standardisation process.

BlockOne’s key goal is to use standardisation as a tool for exploiting the opportunies provided by blockchains. Emphasis is put on the specification of technical requirements in order to minimize application risks as well as the creation of guidelines to use the technology appropriately in the context of specified use case scenarios. The initial development of a terminology will create an important foundation in this regard. The selected instrument is the development of two DIN specifications (DIN SPECs) in collaboration with the DIN committee “Informationstechnik und Anwendungen (NIA)” as well as the DIN group “IT und IT-Sicherheit”. After their completion, the plan is to submit the documents to ISO in order for them to be used for further international standardisation activities.

References:

[1] See World Economic Forum, “The future of financial infrastructure. An ambitious look at how blockchain can reshape financial services“, 2016. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_future_of_ [1]financial_infrastructure.pdf [2].
[2] Deloitte, “Insights. Blockchain-Technologie. Aktuelle Herausforderungen und Chancen“, 2016. http://www2.deloitte.com/de/de/pages/innovation/contents/vorstellung-blockchain.html [3].
[3] Standards Australia, “Blockchain & Electronic Distributed Ledger Technologies New Field of Technical Activity“, 2016. http://www.standards.org.au/OurOrganisation/Events/Documents/Blockchain%20NFTA%20Information%20Sheet.pdf [4].

Partners:

Core team:

• Fachgebiet Innovationsökonomie der TU Berlin
  (coordinator: Dr. Simone Wurster [5])
• Cryptom Technologies U.G.
• BigchainDB GmbH

Associated partners:

• CAS AG
• IPDB Foundation

Duration: 2 Years