Bitcoin Global News (BGN)

March 18, 2019 -- ADVFN Crypto newsWire -- Increased funding for the development of blockchain technology has been an ongoing process in various branches of the Australian government. Most recently, a three way collaboration between the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment of Australia’s government, put together a development plan of a national blockchain roadmap and $100,000 of funding from the Morrison Government. The initiative is made to help position Australia’s burgeoning blockchain industry as a global leader.

“The national strategy puts us on the front foot in exploring how government and industry can enhance the long-term development of blockchain and its uses. We will work closely with blockchain and technology experts from industry and academia to develop the strategy, as well as with CSIRO’s Data61 to incorporate findings from their forthcoming future scenarios report on blockchain.” - Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Karen Andrews

The roadmap highlights a number of policy areas including regulation, skills and capacity building, innovation, investment, and international competitiveness and collaboration. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) research arm Data61 already has study underway regarding many of these topics.

The organization has also put work into actively piloting blockchain systems. In September of last year, CSIRO tested a blockchain network developed in partnership with the University of Sydney that could process 30,000 cross-border transactions per second. The network utilized a novel algorithm approach to proof-of-work called deterministic byzantine consensus. Essentially, the network is able to complete transactions after receiving a threshold of messages rather than waiting for confirmations from nodes that are slow.

Funding Consensus 2019

The blockchain push in Australia is taking a fully holistic approach. In addition to innovating in the deeper aspects of the technology with pilot networks, they will be using some of the funding as a form of first hand marketing. “In addition, $100,000 funding will come through my department for Australian companies to join Austrade’s Mission to Consensus in New York in May, a landmark event for the blockchain industry, demonstrating the Morrison Government’s commitment to boosting this sector.” - Karen Andrews

This process began last May when the Australian government also committed AU$700,000 (roughly $521,000 at the time) to the Digital Transformation Agency. The group would focus on blockchain applications and potential integration with government services. But even prior, to this, the Australian government has been working to get a handle on cryptocurrency and blockchain technology regulation. In March 2017 AU$350,000 ($2,48,970) was pledged of to support the development of blockchain standards over a four year period.

By: BGN Editorial Staff