International law firm Bird & Bird and their consulting arm OXYGY today announce together with the European Commission that applications are now open for the third cohort of the European Blockchain Sandbox. Applications will remain open until 31 Jan 2025 at 23:59 CET.
Bird & Bird and OXYGY together with the European Commission are encouraging companies (including start-ups and scale-ups) and public entities from across the EU/EEA with innovative Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT)/blockchain use cases to participate and be at the forefront of this dialogue and mutual learning experience. The third cohort is also open to DLT/blockchain use cases in combination with other innovative technologies such as AI and IoT.
The three-year initiative supports 20 projects annually, with the first cohort starting in 2023, and is open to use cases across the EU/EEA applying or using any type of DLT/blockchain infrastructure. The previous two cohorts saw 20 innovative blockchain use cases per cohort engage in dialogues with regulatory authorities from across the EU/EEA. For more information about the use cases involved in the first two cohorts, click here and here.
In addition to specialist legal and regulatory advice provided by Bird & Bird, the European blockchain regulatory sandbox provides a confidential platform for innovative blockchain use cases to engage in discussions with national and EU regulators to enhance the understanding of novel regulatory issues, increase legal certainty and contribute to the development of best practices.
Blockchain use cases will be selected based on a number of criteria, including the maturity of their business case, legal/regulatory relevance and their contribution to the EU’s wider policy priorities. Selected use cases will be matched with national and EU regulators. Further information about the selection criteria and the application process can be found here.
If you wish to be considered for the next cohort of dialogues, please click here to apply and review the Application Terms which are available here.
Marjolein Geus, chair of the international Tech & Comms group at Bird & Bird says: “There are regulatory questions but also solutions when applying existing and new regulatory instruments to innovative DLT/blockchain use cases across many industry sectors. As the technology continues to develop, and is increasingly combined with other innovative technologies (AI, Internet of Things, Quantum Computing) having open discussions about the regulatory issues, potential solutions and how to support compliance and oversight are vital to the further development of these important technologies.”
Edoardo Monopoli, CEO at OXYGY adds: "This is a very exciting opportunity for use case owners as the Sandbox gives blockchain companies a platform to raise their profile by being part of one of the largest European projects of its kind, and to have their voices heard when developing best practices around blockchain regulation. Furthermore, this is a chance for them to build relationships with national and EU regulators and authorities, and also to strengthen their understanding of the regulatory landscape.”
The European blockchain regulatory sandbox for innovative use cases involving Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) is an initiative of the European Commission. The sandbox provides a confidential platform for innovative blockchain use cases to engage in discussions with national and EU regulators and authorities in order to enhance the understanding of novel regulatory issues, increase legal certainty and contribute to the development of best practices.
The pan-European sandbox is set up and operated by a consortium of legal experts from Bird & Bird and its consulting arm OXYGY, supported by blockchain experts Warren Brandeis (formerly WBNoDE) and by the web-designers Spindox, with use case selection verified by a panel of independent academics consisting of Professor Roman Beck (IT-University, Copenhagen), Professor Soulla Louca (University of Nicosia, Cyprus) and Professor Walter Blocher (University of Kassel).
