To accelerate blockchain/DLT technical interoperability, transverse sectoral alignment, preparedness and resilience in the global digital marketplace, it is crucial to have a common view of open standards, relevant actors, organisations and methods.

Standards Development Organisations (SDOs) can be classified by geography (e.g., international, regional, national), and/or by industry section (e.g., technology, finance, agriculture).

International SDOs develop international standards. International standards are largely voluntary and do not restrict the use of other standards or none. The three largest SDOs are ISO, IEC and ITU (named below), have over time established processes for developing and publishing voluntary international standards. Together, they comprise the World Standards Cooperation (WSC) alliance, formed in 2001.

 

 

 

There are several published, emerging and transversal blockchain/DLT standards, addressing several priority areas within the sector:

  1. Identity management: self-sovereignty; privacy; anonymity; account abstraction; secure wallet management;
  2. Data provenance: on/off-chain data flows; data trustworthiness; verifiable oracle services/registries;
  3. Governance: stakeholder reputation including roles, rights and responsibilities; online voting; DAOs; peer-to-peer virtual communities;
  4. Token and asset creation and exchange: cryptocurrency; virtual assets; fungible and non-fungible tokens; exchange protocols;
  5. Process optimisation: process transparency; multi-party, interoperable, cloud-based resource-sharing; 5G and mobile edge computing; energy-efficiency;
  6. Automation: smart contracts; intelligent agency; robotics;
  7. Cybersecurity and applied game theory: open source, distributed and decentralised system architectures; end-point security; encryption; consensus mechanisms;
  8. Use cases: that elaborate these niches or other relevant domains.

In figure below it is available a breakdown of published, emerging, and transversal standards within blockchain/DLT standards.

 

 

 

Blockchain & DLT Standards are seen as a top priority within the sector (Source: Deloitte 2020 Global Blockchain Survey), to support the mass adoption of this technology, specially in the enterprise space. Below it is available an overview of published, emerging and transversal blockchain/DLT standards from international SDOs.

 

 

 

Read our "Landscape and gap analysis on Blockchain/DLT standardisation" to learn more detais