Regulatory Trends in Blockchain Technologies

The blockchain is a technology that was initially designed as an alternative to the banking system aimed to decentralize money circulation. It has become apparent that the invention has a vast potential to improve various industries and fields of human activities. The blockchain industry generated a variety of ideas of how to use this technology: to crowdfund business with Initial Coin Offerings (ICO), to tokenize and manage assets online, to improve public administration and state-owned registries, or even to use it for electronic voting. Multiple applications of this technology became possible since the industry started experimenting with overlay technologies on blockchains, for example, Colored Coins, known as tokens on Bitcoin; Namecoin, a blockchain as a decentralized infrastructure for Top-Level Domain “.bit,” but the significant step forward happened when Ethereum proposed their concept of smart contracts on blockchain. There are several platforms that offer users the ability to design their own private and public distributed ledgers (Hyperledger, Azure). It is not easy to mention all of the projects in the field of blockchain industry; however, at this stage, it has become clear that the technology (along with some other innovations, like Artificial Intelligence) is penetrating spheres that are traditionally highly regulated and centralized with a high level of human participation: securities and exchanges, public registries (notary, real estate, business entities and other registries), public finances, elections, etc. This discussion is devoted to the issues of regulations for the activities that arise from the blockchain