The German government has announced that the country will introduce a blockchain strategy by mid-2019. The Federal Government responded on 26 February to a parliamentary inquiry from the Bundestag, which dealt with the fintech development of the country.
What does the document say?
The document states that there are currently fintech sandboxes in five Member States of the European Union. Namely in Denmark, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland and Great Britain.
The Federal Cabinet states that there will be an online consultation before the introduction of the blockchain strategy. According to the federal government, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Economy and Energy would prepare the strategy. It is expected that other relevant ministries would also contribute to this later.
How are things going
Earlier this month, Reuters reported that the federal government is already consulting companies and industry groups that could participate in the country’s blockchain development. According to the report, unnamed organizations were invited to make recommendations.
The report also cites unnamed government sources, according to which it is still unclear whether these recommendations would be translated into regulation in the near future. But at the moment concrete results are to be sought.
Crypto, what everyone wants to have
At the end of January, Stuttgart’s second-largest stock exchange, the Stuttgart Stock Exchange, officially launched its crypto-trading app Bison, which enables free trading in Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Ripple (XRP).
In January, Deutsche Börse, a major global securities marketplace, said it would make “significant progress” on its blockchain-based securities lending platform.
Also published on Medium.