How Estonia applies blockchain to the whole state

    imageAgainst the background of public discussions about the global outlook for blockchain, one of the countries actively using this technology at the state level is Estonia. In this Baltic country with a population of just over 1.3 million people, technology has already managed to find practical application in medicine, the banking sector, stock trading and notaries. We, in the Wirex blockchain service team, decided to examine in more detail each of the uses of blockchain technology in Estonia.

    In early spring, the project Guardtime, specializing in data security, announcedon partnership with the eHealth Foundation - the Estonian e-Health Foundation. The solutions proposed by Guardtime are based on KSI (Keyless signature infrastructure), a blockchain technology that provides large-scale data authentication without reliance on a centralized trusted authority. The goal of the project is to protect over 1 million medical records. According to Guardtime developers, the KSI infrastructure they implemented was implemented into the Oracle database engine. Through this integration, changes in patient records can be seen in real time.

    Guardtime blockchain technology ensures the safety, transparency and integrity of medical information, protecting data from unforeseen changes or deletions due to hacker attacks, system failures and actions of malicious programs. Every time the data is subject to any change, the system automatically creates an updated signature, allowing you to quickly respond in case of unlawful infringement of the integrity of the information. The records themselves are not stored on the KSI blockchain - only a series of their hash values ​​are recorded, in which information about the changes is displayed. The KSI blockchain infrastructure was implemented by the Guardtime team and began functioning in April 2008 before the advent of the Bitcoin blockchain.

    The prospects for the blockchain were also relevant for the Estonian banking sector. An example of this isLHV Bank , which, with the support of the Swedish company ChromaWay, has developed a Cuber Wallet wallet. The operation of the solution is based on the open protocol of Bitcoin blockchain Colored Coins. Cuber Wallet is available to owners of devices based on Android and iOS. Cuber Wallet users store private keys on their mobile phone. Wallet allows you to send and receive euros instantly, around the clock and for free.

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    Cuber Wallet e-wallet

    Back in March last year, LHV Bank entered into a partnership with the British Bitcoin exchange CoinFloor to manage user deposits.

    The blockchain technology was not alien to the Estonian stock trading industry. Last fall, the head of NASDAQ, Robert Grifeld, announced the prospects for using the blockchain technology for the implementation of electronic voting of stockholders on the Estonian NASDAQ stock exchange. Thanks to the blockchain, it becomes impossible to make changes to the voting results, and it also becomes possible to see the voting results from different devices. On February 12 of this year, a pilot launch of the blockchain voting system took place . Based on the results of technology testing in Estonia, NASDAQ later opened blockchain services for more than 100 global partners.

    In November last year it became knownthat the Bitnation project used blockchain technology in the notarial sphere. By consolidating with the Estonian government's e-Residency program, participants in the Bitnation project gained access to traditional notarial services transferred to the blockchain, such as marriage registration, birth certificate, as well as some types of commercial contracts. Bitnation notary services are characterized by decentralization and the ability to use them from anywhere in the world. The e-Residency program started on December 1, 2014.

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    E-residency digital identification card

    Estonian merchants also do not refuse to accept bitcoins for payment. In the segment of small medium-sized businesses, such companies include the seller of fresh Salatte salads and furniture retailer Finca mööbel.

    The purposeful policy of state digitalization has helped to diversify the implementation of blockchain technology in Estonia. As an example, there are several facts from modern Estonian history that are not directly related to the blockchain:

    • By 2002, the government built a free Wi-Fi network covering a high percentage of localities.
    • In 2007, the Estonian authorities introduced electronic voting.
    • In 2012, Estonia established a massive fiber optic cable infrastructure for ultra-high-speed data transmission.

    The technology of the blockchain against the background of these facts seems only a logical continuation of the general state technological policy.

    Continue to follow the updates of the Wirex multifunctional service blog that performs instant money transfers worldwide without banking intermediation, and learn about the cases of using the blockchain technology not only in the interests of private business, but also on a government scale.

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