Last month, our Head of Innovation, Luke Riley, attended the plenary meeting of the ISO/TC 307 International Standards Organisation hosted by the Spanish Association for Standardisation for members and ISO TC307 representatives. He offers his key takeaways from the event and discusses some of the recent work Quant has been doing within this space to enable interoperability and encourage standards adoption.
Hosted in Valladolid, the event brought together more than 90 experts from 30 countries, including representatives of public entities, governments, sector associations, international organisations, standardisation bodies, private companies, research centers and universities.
As a member of the British Standards Institution, I am honoured to be appointed to the distributed ledger technology standards expert group and invited to contribute to worldwide DLT standards development.
The event split attendees into several working groups, dividing them thematically to provide a platform for standardisation experts to delve into specific areas of interest and exchange insights. Some of the key topics included vocabulary and terminology, security, privacy and identity management, smart contracts, governance, interoperability, non-fungible tokens and digital currencies.
Takeaways from the ISO Technical Committee plenary:
1. DLT interoperability is a requirement
Several discussions during the conference highlighted interoperability as a requirement across multiple areas of standardisation. ISO TC 307 has its own specific interoperability working group (working group 7), for which our Founder and CEO, Gilbert Verdian, is the convenor.
This working group is developing an Interoperability Framework document that details a simple classification of DLT interoperability, by dividing interoperability into three areas. These three areas below provide a framework for how DLT projects should be built.
A. Modes (data transfer, asset transfer and asset exchange)
B. Infrastructure (nodes, proxies and gateways)
C. Solutions (oracles & cross-authentication)
Outside of working group 7, interoperability was also mentioned in relation to smart contracts, specifically for real-world asset tokenisation, in which smart contracts are required to connect to external systems. Finally, there was discussion around interoperability in relation to auditing in working group 5 (governance). This conversation explored how to audit a blockchain system by using an interoperability protocol.
2. Progress within standardisation is slow and gradual
Standardisation is crucial to the development and implementation of blockchain technology. The conference made is clear that progress within ISO standards development is often slow and gradual.
Although it can take a long time for ideas to be implemented, it is important that recommendations from all national standards bodies are considered to ensure that standards have the highest chance of uptake once they are published.
3. The Finternet
The Bank for International Settlements’ concept of the Finternet and unified ledgers was a key discussion point during a side event co-hosted by the Bank of Spain. Although many believed the concept is a long way off, but our work on the UK’s Regulated Liability Network suggests otherwise.
In the session, we discussed what the interoperability protocol will be for the Finternet and unified ledgers. My own view is that interoperability protocols limited to a particular distributed ledger technology would not be appropriate and instead, we will most likely see gateway specific protocols as this will allow for easier integration.
Our work in developing DLT standards
Attending events like this keeps us close to the projects being worked on within the standardisation space, as well as providing an opportunity to connect with industry peers and share ideas. Our contribution to standardisation goes beyond that. We are also involved in several research projects into standardisation and the importance of interoperability.
Last year, the Association for Computing Machinery published a research article we contributed to that explored the pros and cons of a DLT interoperability solution. It has since become a key source for the Interoperability Framework standard that is currently in development.
We have also been working on the Secure Asset Transfer Protocol working group, which is focused on developing a more technical standard that complements our work in ISO and is focused on categorisation and frameworks.
How Quant can help