Catalonian Government Moves Towards The Blockchain Technology Integration

By Kapil Gauhar

The government of Catalonia is now looking to integrate blockchain technology into their system, a bold move from the autonomous Spanish community. The Generalitat de Catalunya (Government of Catalonia) has reportedly revealed a plan for this tech implementation.

The Generalitat de Catalunya, which is an official institution of the Spanish government for the autonomous province of Catalonia, is going to promote crypto-technology “with the aim of improving digital services to the public and promoting the potential of this technology between the Administration, companies and the citizen[s].”

With the unending number of new crypto-regulations from the EU, reports have suggested that the Catalonian government is indeed hard at work to address the increasing need for the implementation of blockchain technology across all public administration sectors by the end of the current year. Given that the region and the crypto-users residing there are constantly battling against larger forces in the form of financial institutions and fiat currency, this indeed is very good news. While Catalonia has always been trying to stand out from Spain to show its progressive thinking, they have certainly never received much help. But they do have working groups of experts.

The strategies and plans of action proposed by the Department of Digital Policies, which will be created and framed by an interdepartmental working group of experts in blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies, all ultimately look to promote “knowledge, training and the creation of talent in the field of ‘blockchain’”. The department is also using their studies to identify the areas where the technology might attain its maximum potential and economic value, so as to best identify the local needs of the Catalans themselves.

On an interesting note, however, Catalonia might just be following in the footsteps of Spain in this area. Spain had already gone ahead with making use of blockchain and crypto-technologies into the systems of a variety of industries and organisations. Barcelona Tech City had made an announcement in May that they would proceed with the creation of a space that would be specialised for the development of blockchain and crypto-technologies. The banking giant Santander, which has its headquarters located in Spain, had become the first global company in the world that used blockchain technology for investor voting procedures.

With the implementation of blockchain technologies across Catalonia, the viable crypto-based future predicted by the EU seems a little closer to reality. It will certainly be interesting to see how the scene in Catalonia pans out.