European Commission has been mandated by the European Parliament to implement a pilot project in the context of the Horizontal Taskforce on fintech and Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) in a move to build technical expertise and regulatory capacity.

The pilot project will have a blockchain Observatory as well as a Forum to gather opinions and concerns around blockchain ecosystem. The project aims to become EU expertise hub that will be discussing progressive and futuristic topics on blockchain as well as develop and build use cases at EU level.

“The purpose will be to inform and assist the European Commission in understanding what role – if any - European public authorities should play to encourage the development and up-take of these technologies and to formulate related policy recommendations,” the announcement read.

The blockchain observatory will offer an up-to-date outline of relevant initiatives relying on blockchain, follows-up the developments as well as advancements of this technology and related challenges for EU industry and governments. It will also develop expertise on transversal topics including infrastructure, governance and validation mechanisms, smart contracts, among others and build a platform for the European blockchain community.

The approximate budget of the EU blockchain observatory is € 500,000 over a period of 2 years. EU will be publishing the call for tender during the second quarter of this year.