The Korean government will try to ‘Assess Blockchain Technology.’

The Korean government will try to ‘Assess Blockchain Technology.’

The Korean government is establishing an assessment index reflecting technologies and platform features to analyze the utility of blockchains from different fields.

On July 22, Software Policy Research institute (SPRi) under the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) MSIT can be used subsequently has decided to conduct ‘Blockchain Service Utility Assessment,’ and it will start the research needed within this month.

The very initial stage of the research will be the examination on global ‘use-case’ of blockchain. Twenty blockchain projects in-and-outside of Korea will be subject to the intensive analysis.

The use-case will be selected mainly from the fields of finance, public service, healthcare, manufacture, retail, and media business. The selected fields are based on ‘Classification of blockchains based on its basic functions, by industry,’ suggested by the SPRi.

The first draft of the blockchain utility assessment index will be established based on the classification provided by SPRi, followed by a series of consultations for the index provided by small expert groups of technology, business, law, and crypto industry.

The blockchain projects to be the selected are limited to private blockchains.

SPRi explained, “International cases will be included to make the assessment index because blockchain technology is not widely applied in Korea. Any relevant domestic cases can be subject to the analysis. However, selected domestic service providers would be required to provide detailed information.”

SPRi is planning to complete the assessment index and publish the final report by  December 2019.

The final report will be submitted to the Ministry of Science and ICT.

The assessment index will be mainly used by the Ministry of Science and ICT when planning a budget related to blockchain budget or promoting a relevant policy.

Personnel from SPRi said that the purpose of the research is to find a field where the utility can be maximized when applying blockchain technology. Details on how the index would be utilized will be further discussed within the Ministry afterward.

Aside from SPRi, Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) is also analyzing the economic effects of the blockchain service adoptions on twelve ‘Public Leading Demonstration Projects’ and three ‘Private Civil Projects.’

For example, it assesses how much the economic value will be generated if the blockchain e-certificate business developed by SK Telecom is applied to a university graduate verification service.

A person in concern of KISA said that they are trying to create models to assess the economic effects of blockchain. KISA will refer to the models to decide on the fields of industry that the government will focus its policy on.

Jeong Taeil (2019. 07. 22.) ‘블록체인 평가’ 이달중 연구 착수
Korean Herald, retrieved from http://biz.heraldcorp.com/view.php?ud=20190722000338