EU, US Lawmakers Tout 'Sandbox' Approach for Blockchain Development

International lawmakers speaking at CoinDesk's Consensus 2018 conference today argued that regulatory "Sandboxes" may offer the best approach for blockchain innovation in the absence of official guidance.

Speaking at a panel discussion on global jurisdictions, U.S. House Representative David Schweikert said that, while there's as yet no fully clear relegation in place in the U.S. to govern cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, that may not necessarily be a bad thing.

The lawmaker continued to explain that his own state of Arizona is already taking a sandbox approach, which allows applications of innovations including blockchain technology to be experimented with in a supervised environment with trusted business partners.

The situation on the European continent may be slightly different when it comes to advancing blockchain technology, although it is still eyeing the potential introduction of a sandbox approach in the future.

Sharing her experience of working with EU legislators on advancing blockchain technology, she said "In the next few years we'll have harmonization, sandboxes and regulation."

One obstacle, as Kaili explained, comes down to EU lawmakers' lack of knowledge on the subject of blockchain.

"We are still getting more member states to join our effort ... to remove frictions and costs to ensure to blockchain technology is offering us great solutions."

To that end, also in April, a group of 22 EU nations jointly formed a blockchain partnership under the European Commission to exchange information on the technology in a bid to create opportunities for adopting blockchain applications across the EU-wide single market.

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