According to reports, in an Oct. 3 meeting, representatives of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) claimed that the agency is testing a blockchain-based supply chain management system to evaluate whether blockchain can contribute to CBP's efforts to track and verify shipments under the newly negotiated United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the intended replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In Spain, officials recently announced an initiative to turn the Port of Valencia into a "smart port" using blockchain and big data, joining Aragon and Catalonia as Spanish municipalities attempting to leverage blockchain for government applications.
According to a recently published report, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), an EU financial watchdog agency, has budgeted over 1 million euros for its efforts to supervise and regulate new fintech, including cryptocurrencies, with the goal of achieving a coordinated approach to regulation. This milestone in the EU's attempt to monitor cryptocurrencies and related technologies came as the EU Parliament weighed a wide-ranging resolution to examine and promote blockchain technologies on the continent. The resolution passed on Oct. 4 and recommends that member states take steps to incorporate cryptocurrencies into European payment systems, develop educational and legal frameworks for distributed ledger technologies, and evaluate blockchain-based voting, among other recommendations. In debates over the resolution, some EU officials raised concerns over potential conflicts between the adoption of blockchain and compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a wide-ranging EU digital privacy law.
CoinDesk reported recently that Rain Financial, a cryptocurrency exchange backed by the Central Bank of Bahrain, expects to launch early next year. Rain's founders claim that the exchange could encourage new flows of Middle Eastern capital into crypto markets without running afoul of know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering standards applied by Western cryptocurrency exchanges. Earlier this week, Reuters reported that the UAE's securities and commodities regulator plans to roll out regulations allowing companies to raise capital through initial coin offerings (ICOs) in the first half of next year.
Park Won-Soon, the mayor of Seoul, announced in Zurich recently that his five-year plan to integrate blockchain into public services and turn Seoul into a "smart city" will have a budget of 123.3 billion won ($108 million). Park claimed that services covering everything from welfare to motor vehicles to employment insurance to voting will adopt blockchain. The mayor campaigned on the issue of blockchain adoption and incubation, which the South Korean national government has also made a priority.
Meanwhile, in Latin America, Bloomberg reported that Venezuela's government will soon require its citizens to pay for passports using Petro, a state-issued, oil- and mineral-backed token. Widely seen as an effort to stem the flow of refugees out of Venezuela, the move will make it even harder for Venezuelans to leave that country. Once the new cryptocurrency comes online, a passport will cost approximately eight times the national monthly minimum wage.
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