On 14 February 2023, the European Commission launched a regulatory sandbox for innovative use cases involving Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs).
The sandbox establishes a pan-European framework for regulatory dialogues to increase legal certainty for innovative blockchain solutions. Funded by the Digital Europe Programme and delivering on the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) strategy, the sandbox is running from 2023 to 2026 and will annually support 20 projects, including public sector use cases on the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure. Projects will be chosen through calls for expression of interest. Every year, the most innovative regulator participating in the sandbox will also be awarded a prize. The selection process will be overseen by a panel of independent academic experts.
The sandbox is open to companies from all industry sectors and public entities for projects beyond a proof-of-concept stage and already close-to-market or at an early stage of being operational, involving, amongst other technologies, the use of DLT. Priority will be given to more mature use cases where legal and regulatory questions of broader relevance arise. Use cases chosen for deployment between public authorities in the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure will have priority but annually up to 20 use cases with a cross border dimension can participate as well.
Innovative public entities and private sector companies (including start-ups and scale-ups) established and operating in the European Economic Area (EEA) can apply in the first call for the expression of interest which has just been launched. This first call will be open until 14 April 2023. The European Blockchain Regulatory Sandbox will operate for 3 years with 3 annual cohorts of 20 use cases each. A designated web portal for the European Blockchain Regulatory Sandbox is live and features all relevant information for interested parties.
