Russia Wants an Ethereum-Based Blockchain for City Services

Moscow’s Informational Technologies Department in Russia has announced an auction to build an Ethereum-based blockchain system that can provide administrative e-services to the city’s population.

Reported by Russian news outlet, Open Media , the purported budget for the project is 57 million Russian rubles, which is around $860,000. The aim of the project is to improve the transparency of the administrative services that are provided to citizens. These services include the provision of official documents related to housing, such as for real estate transactions or for receiving subsidies. The technology will also be harnessed for tasks such as the distribution of retail spaces.

The government wishes to host a platform which can simultaneously support 1.5 million users, and plans for it to be a proof-of-authority based blockchain. The contractor, once chosen, will have 60 days to complete the assignment. The automation of electronic services provided by Moscow City Hall on blockchain technology aims to improve the transparency of the internal mechanisms and to reduce costs.

The contractors might also be tasked with combining the new platform with the existing blockchain mechanisms being tested by the Moscow government. The mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, announced the intentions of the administration to employ blockchain technology as early as November 2017. One such project is Active Citizen, which was launched in 2017 and built on blockchain technology. It allows Moscow residents to express their preferences on public works projects such as locations for new bike paths.

Blockchain Voting in Moscow

The government will also employ blockchain technology in voting for the first time this September. City Hall plans on conducting an experiment on the applications of blockchain technology on remote Internet voting this September 8th. Blockchain can allow the process to be anonymous, with the electronic depersonalised ballot stored on the blockchain, preventing the vote from being linked to the voter’s name.