July 2022 Newsletter

News

First hybrid event since 2022!

Our first hybrid event since 2020, ‘Blockchain: a key enabler to innovation in Europe and the world’, took place in Brussels, on 8 July 2022.

Our team presented the latest updates on the EU blockchain landscape, the latest trends like Metaverse, Web3.0, NFTs, and the energy efficiency of blockchain applications. There was also the opportunity to directly liaise with policy makers, regulators, start-upers, NGOs, academics & researchers in the blockchain domain.

A big thank you to all our fantastic speakers, panellists and moderators: Eva A. Kaili, Pierre Marro, Lambis Dionysopoulos, Soulla Louca, Nena Dokuzov, Marc Taverner, Jusha Ellul, Christian Hauschildt, Daniel Bachenheimer, Kai Wagner, Paola Heudebert, Maya Madrid, Nikolaos Kostopoulos, Jeff Bandman, Dr. Ingrid Vasiliu-Feltes, Ioannis Revolidis, Leonardo Calini, Alex de Vries, Jens Strüker, and Ioannis Vlachos.

A big thank you to our wonderful team for making this happen: Marianna Charalambous, Aliki Ntouzgou, Vasileios Koukis, Nasos Grigoratos, Coulouris Nicolaos, Zoran Cuk, and Natalia Bimpiza.

Many thanks to DG CNECT for hosting the event, and a special thanks to Marie Markosian and Barbora Greplova for their continuous support!

We are pleased to inform you that the link to the streamed session is now available, in case you missed it!

Newly published reports

In June, EUBOF published the following reports:

• Report on DeFI: the aim of this report is to define and present the main principles of DeFi. It also gives details about the DeFi market size, the concepts of decentralised lending and borrowing as well as decentralised exchanges and other notable DeFi Concepts.

• Report on Blockchain Applications in the Energy Sector: the report provides an overview of blockchain technology in the energy sector. On the basis of interviews with experts, the report also examines standardisation activities, use cases in the sector, the status of R&D and innovation, regulatory challenges and barriers, as well as insights directly from the industry. It also provides policy and regulatory recommendations for the future development of blockchain applications in the energy sector.

• June Trends report: the report includes latest trends and developments in blockchain, examining markets, technological developments and updates on the legal and regulatory framework globally.

Upcoming

EUBOF Reports

The following reports are slated for publication:

• The revision of a thematic report exploring the latest developments in the EU blockchain ecosystem. Covering 31 countries in Europe, this report will provide insights into trends and developments regarding regulations, education and training initiatives, and industry. It will be published before the end of July 2022.
• A thematic report examining the challenges and opportunities of Metaverse will be published by the end of August 2022.
• A thematic report on sustainable supply chains will be published in September 2022.

Events

This workshop is organised by the Governmental Advisory Body of INATBA and its work stream on blockchain policies and innovation ecosystems, which seeks to identify the needs of policy makers (with a focus on Africa) in developing national blockchain policies that provide an enabling environment for the growth of local innovation ecosystems, while providing an appropriate regulatory framework that provides protection to citizens in terms of data protection and privacy.

The workshop is focused on blockchain start-ups, innovation hubs and SMMEs in European countries. The idea is to look at the landscape of start-ups, innovation hubs and SMMEs, their establishment, growth, and areas of work within the EU.

Please register for the workshop here

Past Events

EUBOF workshop on blockchain applications in the energy sector 

The workshop took place on 29 June and discussed blockchain applications in the energy sector. Ioannis Vlachos, presented the latest report published by the Observatory, which focuses on the energy sector but also explores the EU action plan for digitalisation of energy.

The following topics were addressed by the panel of invited experts:

• DLT standardisation activities in the energy sector
• From Theory to Practice: Tales from the industry
• Status of R&D innovation in Europe

The recording of the session is available here, and the summary report will be published soon.

EUBOF workshop on Metaverse in association with INATBA

On 24 May, a workshop titled “Metaverse – why all the hype?” was held virtually to discuss Metaverse and the opportunities and threats arising with this new digital space from academic and industry perspective.

The event included presentations from academia and industry as well as an expert panel.

The report of the event is available here!

Other Publications

The European blockchain skills strategy builds on over one year of extensive research carried out by the CHAISE partnership, which analysed the blockchain labour market and the supply and demand for blockchain skills, as well as on numerous consultations with key European stakeholders.

Led by CHAISE partner INATBA, the strategy sums up the main results of the analysis and formulates a strategy and action plan to tackle the blockchain skills shortage in Europe and keep Europe at the forefront of blockchain innovation.

You can read the strategy here!

Are you interested in finding out more about blockchain market characteristics? Read the Chaise project report entitled Study on Blockchain Labour Market Characteristics and check out the following:

• Study on skills mismatches in the blockchain sector
• Registry of blockchain educational and training offerings
• Registry of blockchain job vacancies

Map of Blockchain Education and Training Initiatives

We are proud to present our new website function, a map of existing blockchain training and educational initiatives in Europe and the rest of the world!

We invite all organisations offering such training or educational programmes to provide information about their initiatives by completing a simple online form. All entries will be reviewed by our team in terms of relevance and completeness of information and will then be made available on the map.

Users will be able to find training and education opportunities based on specific criteria, including country, language, type of courses offered, type of certification, etc.

For more information visit our website.

Blockchain initiatives and projects on a map!

Are you aware of any blockchain initiatives or projects in your country? Are you organising an initiative or project related to blockchain? We want to know about it!

To put your project on the map simply fill in this form. Initiatives include startups, not-for-profit organisations, academic research, open source projects, consortium, government or corporate initiatives, foundations and more. 

For more information visit our website.

Forum

Feedback from the community is key to shaping these publications. Conversations are happening every day between the members of the eublockchain.mobilize.io community.

Register today! Become part of the conversation. Stay in the loop. Make connections and share knowledge, tips and ideas.