Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), in cooperation with Nomura Research Institute (NRI), has released the results of a survey conducted on blockchain technologies and related services.

The report expects blockchain technology to be applied to a wide variety of fields, including IoT. It explains in detail the mechanism behind bitcoin transactions and breaks the blockchain technology into elements and streamlines the functions and feasible matters.

More importantly, the report highlights the challenges currently identified in the technology and goes on to discuss several use cases of the technology such as land registration, voting, supply chain, certification of authenticity of works of art, management of precious metals and jewels, sharing economy, financial services, and more. Besides discussing these use cases, the report also outlines the impact on the industry structure brought about by the implementation of the technology.

“Private companies may be able to provide various services without the involvement of an intermediary third party”, it noted. “Companies and administrative organs may achieve cost reduction by replacing existing work procedures with blockchains. Some countries have started to consider the adoption of blockchains as public infrastructure”.

Speaking of the impact on socioeconomy, the report believes that the introduction of blockchains as administrative mechanisms or local governments’ systems will simplify various types of paperwork and reduce costs, thereby enabling the administration to focus on more substantial work.

Noting the various efforts currently taking place globally, the report recommends that Japan should move forward in this field in cooperation with other countries.

“Giving incentives to apply existing Japanese technologies accumulated in such fields as cryptography will contribute to the development of blockchains. At the same time, the government can promote hypothesis verification concerning blockchains and accumulate and broadly publicize outcomes and challenges in Japan, thereby efficiently facilitaing the development of the relevant market”, it added.