Entitled “ Blockchain: An Opportunity for Europe. Why should the eurozone not miss the second internet revolution? “, the report published by Bpifrance, Havas Blockchain, and the Concorde Foundation demonstrates that this technology is a revolution in favor of economic sovereignty, industrial competitiveness, and administrative efficiency in Europe.
Europe cannot afford to miss this “ brilliant invention ” (to use the expression of Jean-Claude Trichet, former President of the ECB), a “ second Internet revolution ” which will affect all sectors and whose capacity is disruptive is just beginning.
Based on the testimony of a dozen experts from the finance, health, industry, technology, and energy sectors, this report is divided into two chapters:
The first chapter analyzes the potential of blockchain technology in 4 sectors: industry, health, energy, and the public sphere.
The second chapter explains the need to quickly adopt a “digital euro” to adapt the eurozone to the digital economy of tomorrow.
This report recalls that the blockchain does indeed provide concrete solutions to the various challenges of European sectors.
It makes it possible to optimize the management of industrial supply chains, to improve food transparency, to make us owners of our health data, to adapt the energy network to the growing share of renewable energies, to reinvent the role of ‘State.
This technology also suggests a “digital euro” directly issued by the ECB, with potentially beneficial effects on the European economy.
“Far from the fantasies it may have aroused, this technology is now revealing its concrete applications. The time has come for France and Europe to take full advantage of it so as not to miss this second internet revolution”, insist the authors of this report.
In a context where the COVID-19 crisis is putting pressure on supply chains around the world, blockchain can contribute to the transparency, efficiency, and resilience of European supply chains.
In the luxury sector, the French giant LVMH is developing a blockchain platform aimed at tracking and authenticating the products of its Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior brands.
Blockchain is also an effective technology for simplifying and streamlining regulatory compliance processes which, of course, affects all industries. For example, in the automotive field, Renault recently tested a blockchain project in-vehicle compliance.
This technology can also strengthen the protection of sensitive data, including those related to health. Because the situation is far from reassuring: at the beginning of 2020, the American newspaper ProPublica identified 187 servers storing sensitive data without any IT protection. In total, 60 gigabytes (GB), or around 26,400,000 documents were available on the internet.
But Europe lags far behind the United States. According to a report published by the European Blockchain investment fund LeadBlock Partners entitled “Enterprise Blockchain 2020”, Blockchain venture capital funds have 20 times fewer assets in Europe than in the United States.
Nevertheless, at the end of 2019, the European Commission and the European Investment Fund (EIF) launched an investment program in Artificial Intelligence and blockchain, which “will make 100 million euros available to capital funds- a risk or other investors supporting AI and blockchain products and services”, while private investors will invest alongside the EIF to the tune of €300 million.