TAdviser Review: The Challenges and Prospects of the Russian Blockchain Market in 2024-2025

The topic of blockchain, relatively recently, - some five years ago (an eternity by the standards of IT) - was very heard in Russia. They say that there was a real "hype" on the blockchain, when the technology could be added to the project only for the sake of the red word. And how many firms were registered with this trending word in the name. The general fashion for blockchain was as strong as it was justified. It wasn't just a test. Blockchain technology is truly unique and can be beneficial. And she brings it.

But during the experiments, the market dotted the i here in the sense that most of the projects collapsed, the most motivated remained. Companies found out in what areas the technology can be used, decided what to consider appropriate in this case. It turned out that projects with blockchain cannot be stamped as on a printing press. It turned out that this is a rather resource-intensive enterprise. There are not so many necessary specialists, and the amount of work is gigantic every time. Naturally, companies from the category of large and very large were able to implement such stories. The state entered the game.

According to the definition of the specialized technical committee of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), blockchain is a type of distributed registry technology (TPP) in which confirmed and verified transaction groups are stored in blocks connected to each other in an unauthorized interference resistant and only complementary chain starting with the primary block (genesis block), where each block contains the hash of the previous block of the chain.

Blockchains are public, closed and hybrid. Public - fully decentralized networks in which participants can be anonymous, and access is open to everyone. Closed (or private) are created for certain participants, organizations that are offered limited access, and the network itself is managed centrally. Hybrid combine the advantages of open and private blockchains. They are more flexible to set up, protect privacy and security, work in closed ecosystems, and participants save on cheap transactions.

Best of all, the potential of the technology is revealed when solving the problem of eliminating organizational and technical points of failure (that is, there is no organization or infrastructure element in the network that can lead to the termination of the entire network).

In addition, it is important to share the costs of creating and maintaining a network between participants: with a distributed architecture, everyone keeps a node in their infrastructure and according to their needs.

Most often, experts call such advantages of blockchain: transparency of operations and invariability of data. Transactions approved on the blockchain cannot be deleted and can also be verified by other participants.

Cryptographic algorithms provide protection against hacking and unauthorized access (which, however, does not guarantee that attackers will not find other vulnerabilities), and the decentralized nature of the technology eliminates the risk of failure in the event of a failure of one or more network nodes.

Sergey Kaurov, General Director of Factorin:

The impetus for the development and adoption of blockchain technology in the recent past was the market for tokenized assets under DeFi or "decentralized finance." The new model of the financial system lacks centralized cash flow management and the institution of intermediaries. Their functions replace smart contracts. As a result, transaction costs are reduced to near-zero marks.

Marketing Logic states that, having passed the hype stage, the blockchain has entered the stage of stable development. There are narrow specialists in the direction who are working on large-scale projects that are economically feasible or close any real business or security tasks for large corporations.

Pavel Novikov, Executive Director of Skolkovo Fintech Hub (ВЭБ.РФ Group):

Thanks to the migration of processes to the blockchain, corporations managed to fully automate work with suppliers, reduce the number of errors and the impact of the human factor to zero. Thousands of working hours and millions of rubles of related expenses were saved, the number of counterparties and their turnover increased.

Experts note the universal potential of the technology, which does not allow to clearly categorize its application, and, in theory, the development of a platform on the blockchain can be useful in any area.

Maxim Rozhkov, Associate Professor, Department of Operational Management and Logistics, Higher School of Economics:

A little paraphrasing the quote of V. Buterin, we can say that blockchain is a type of database. Accordingly, the technology can potentially be applied wherever there is a need for databases.

Alexander Nam, Managing Director, Director of the Blockchain Laboratory, Sberbank PJSC:

The current Russian market shows that blockchain can be used in any area - there are no technical restrictions. But this is not always beneficial from the point of view of other business processes.

Blockchain brings a large positive effect to chains of interactions with a large number of participants without trust in each other. The technology helps automate the execution of the transaction - to fulfill all the conditions or not at all.

For example, Orlan System is convinced that blockchain can solve the problem of pricing in construction and other markets.

Sergey Kaurov, General Director of Factorin:

As an effective risk mitigation tool, many participants in the global market consider tokenization of assets, as it allows using the potential of traditional markets, but already in a new digital form. In Russian practice, digital financial assets or CFAs have become such a "bridge."

According to the expert, at the beginning of 2024, the Bank of Russia approved the activities of ten specialized platforms ("information systems"), where the issue of CFA, circulation and repayment of issues can be carried out.

Irina Yakovleva, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Center for the Circulation of Rights to the Results of Creative Activity:

Blockchain and technologies based on it are seen as tools that through high confidence in data and facts stored in information systems, improve the turnover of intellectual rights in the digital environment, increase the number of users of digital services, involve and commercialize more intellectual property and, thus, increase the capitalization of innovative companies, strengthen the economy and technological sovereignty of Russia.

Experts agree that large corporations, banks, and the public sector have the greatest interest in using the technology. To do this, they have all the resources, unlike their colleagues in small companies.

Sergey Kaurov, General Director of Factorin:

To date, many global corporations have spent substantial funds on R&D, or have already implemented separate blockchain-based solutions. At the same time, joint projects with open networks are less common than customized developments with limited access to participants. Small companies that are not vendors of software products as such practically do not use blockchain. First of all, because it is expensive and inconvenient to own your node, and if you use someone else's, the difference between DLT and the usual centralized solution is completely leveled.

Matvey Voitov, Marketing Director of Web3 Tech:

The largest interested and beneficiaries at the moment are large financial organizations (primarily banks) and government departments with a high level of digitalization. Small and medium-sized businesses can also benefit from the technology, but not in the form of expensive platform and infrastructure projects, but in the format of classic product solutions - for example, secure EDMS based on blockchain. But the current stage of market development does not yet demonstrate great demand for blockchain solutions for SMB.

Mikhail Komarov, professor at the Higher School of Business at the Higher School of Economics:

Working with distributed registry systems requires investment in infrastructure to maintain its operation, small and medium-sized businesses cannot afford such costs. Therefore, the main focus is on the public sector and large corporations, which become drivers for the implementation of solutions and their further replication.

Andrey Lupiy, founder of the Orlan System platform:

I would say that the main interested parties are now large business: blockchain allows them to build a high-quality and transparent system within the company, and this is saving colossal amounts of money. It is also a future tool for attracting financing to businesses (CFA). The state is also very interested in the development of blockchain, the launch of the Digital Ruble project speaks perfectly about this. Blockchain allows transparent and effective financing of state projects.

Mikhail Chekanov, General Director of Industrial Cryptosystems JSC:

Of course, big business and federal banks are most interested in technology. They are ready to finance the development and act as an anchor member of the network - investments pay off faster at the expense of scale. They are the pioneers of new digital horizons and the main beneficiaries of implementation, forming a market around them. Simply put, in a significant part of cases we are talking about increasing or retaining market share. Medium and small businesses can use ready-made solutions created in the interests of large companies.

The expert also said that support for certified cryptographic information protection tools (CIPF) is very important for most customers on the market. The reason lies in the tightening of state regulation against the background of the increased level of threats to information security.

Relatively speaking, all directions can be reduced into three extensive categories. For starters, it's fintech. This is the area from where, in fact, the blockchain began its once victorious procession.

Here, experts talk about digital financial assets (CFA), conducting transactions in cryptocurrency, cross-border payments, factoring and working capital management, projects in the field of trade financing, cash pooling, mortgages, e-commerce, mention the "digital ruble," currency exchange operations, alternative money transfers (from exchangers to exchanges).

Sergey Kaurov, General Director of Factorin:

The fastest blockchain is developing in the financial sector. Interesting cases include the following: digital bank guarantees, a MFD registration network for the needs of the tax service and a service for organizing payments and deductions of the self-employed, a distributed network for intra-group settlements (cache pooling), a platform solution for automating factoring and other working capital management tools.

Alexander Nam, Managing Director, Director of the Blockchain Laboratory, Sberbank PJSC:

The most widely used blockchain is now in the financial sector, but gradually extends to various industries through end-to-end processes and chains of interactions.

In addition to fintech, blockchain came in handy in industry and construction, agriculture and food production. In other words, in the field of material production.

Blockchain helps where it comes to fixing events, allowing you to improve the efficiency of work and maintenance of equipment. Winning and quality control of components and finished products, as well as health and safety (HSE). But most often experts talk here about supply chain control and the benefits for logistics systems.

Well, the third category is all that numerous "other," which was not included in the previous two points. For example, voting and decision-making systems. Or tokenization in all its forms and variants. This also includes the use of technology in retail, real estate transactions, document management and cybersecurity (identification of identity and rights, power of attorney).

Blockchain benefits in the "green" economy, healthcare, is used in product verification for counterfeiting, in air travel, for ticket sales and booking related services, as well as in charity, art and fashion, to attract investment and establish the authenticity of a unique luxury product or artwork.

As for the latter, there are more than a hundred projects in the world to use blockchain technologies to manage intellectual property rights. In the vast majority of cases, they are focused on monetizing specific results of creativity: music, photographs, texts. In Russia, the РЦИС.РФ network allows you to record and work with information about any creative results: with graphic and photographic images, musical works, technical or design solutions, algorithms, computer programs, etc.

DIT of Moscow:

In Moscow, blockchain has been widely used to solve urban problems. The distributed registry technology is useful for the city in that it allows for transparency of communication with residents and increase confidence in Moscow services and services. Blockchain technology has been used in digital projects in the capital for several years, including public services, a charitable service, the Active Citizen project and many others.

If we talk about the most notable companies and educational organizations in the Russian Federation that work in the direction of blockchain development, experts agree on the following. Of the banks, Sberbank is most often mentioned. Among educational organizations give the palm of the championship of St. Petersburg State University and MIPT. Among specialized companies, Atomais is most often called, which became the first platform of the CFA in the Russian Federation.

If you look from the point of view of financial weight in the market of the Russian Federation, as the main segment of the market, it is necessary to allocate state projects.

Suffice it to say that the annual budget of a single KNO on this topic exceeds the expenses of the country's leading mining holding for all years in this area. The beneficiaries are not yet obvious, in most cases the task is easier and faster to solve using a traditional centralized database, but nevertheless there are separate B2B2G scenarios in which a distributed register is useful as a transport and as an environment for ensuring trust, "Mikhail Chekanov shared.

In the field of state and municipal administration, among the examples of the most effective application of technology: registration of real estate transactions, the formation of a single register of purchases of corporations with state participation, registers of documents, databases of court decisions and enforcement proceedings, portals of public participation of citizens in public affairs and others.

To further illustrate where and how blockchain technology is used in Russia today, we propose to look at the brief dossiers of the participants in this review.

Skolkovo Fintech Hub (ВЭБ.РФ Group)

The Sk Fintech Hub portfolio includes 11 companies implementing their developments based on blockchain technology. Blockchain Hub, which developed the Factorin platform, Web3 Tech (the Confidence platform), Blockchain Development B41 (the Nodes Plus platform, which is suitable for creating industrial solutions of industry and state scales), AML Crypto, a developer of tools for self-analysis of blockchain transactions (for assessing risks, the origin of funds, etc.), and a number of others.

Web3 Tech

Together with PJSC Rostelecom, by order of the Central Election Commission (CEC of the Russian Federation), the company developed and implemented a remote electronic voting system (DEG). Presents its solutions on the Russian market from 2019 (until 2022 under the Waves Enterprise brand). One of the main solutions in the portfolio is the Confidential corporate blockchain platform. The company also created a digital platform for the distributed register of the Federal Tax Service and information systems within the framework of this platform.

Industrial Cryptosystems JSC

Over 7 years in this market, the company has made about three dozen contracts in the field of developing distributed systems, mainly for managing production and supply chains. Key projects: Smart Fuel aircraft refueling platform for a large oil company, smart locomotive service contracts for Russian Railways, logistics solutions for several state and corporate customers. There are separate projects in the financial sector, for example, a technological audit of the first CFA platform on the market. Of its own solutions, the company develops two products: the Hauberk distributed register and smart contract management system and the Contractium platform, which allows you to translate the execution and execution of contract chains, including mutual settlements under them, into digital format.

Factorin

The largest digital platform for factoring automation and working capital management, built on the basis of the corporate blockchain Ethereum. Over four years of operation, the company has developed and commercialized several innovative fintech services. The total turnover of transactions in the Factorin system exceeded 1 trillion rubles. The main Factorin network has about 70 nodes, which is significantly more than foreign blockchain solutions for working capital management in trade financing.

CSO "Russian Center for the Circulation of Rights to the Results of Creative Activity"

The РЦИС.РФ network (formerly IPChain) was developed by specialists of the IPChain Association in 2016-2017. This public-corporate blockchain infrastructure is designed to manage intellectual property rights at all stages of its life cycle. The experiment to translate the turnover of intellectual property rights into the form of blockchain records was implemented within the framework of the national program "Digital Economy of the Russian Federation."

Blockchain Laboratory of Sberbank PJSC

Sberbank opened the Blockchain Laboratory in 2018. Sberbank blockchain technologies allow you to create a new infrastructure for the release and circulation of digital financial assets (CFA), track payments and control their purpose, tokenize various entities of the physical world, conduct transparent document management, track deliveries and origin of goods. The solutions are based on Sberbank's own blockchain platform. It is integrated into the bank's services, which allows you to connect the execution of transactions on the platform with payments in rubles.

Department information technology Moscow

Blockchain has been used in digital projects in the capital for several years. The press service of DIT wants to draw the reader's attention to the service for checking housing registration documents, the Active Citizen project, as well as the system for accepting applications for participation in weekend fairs.

MAS-Vneshtrans

Together with the "Center for Distributed Register Technologies" on the basis of St. Petersburg State University (TsTRR St. Petersburg State University), the company is developing the E-Vneshtrans blockchain platform for electronic cargo documents of sea transportation. This project is the first in its class in the Russian Federation.

Ctrl2GO

The company is currently developing the solution "Digital Product Form (Passport)," within the framework of the implementation of which the process of maintaining the contract for the life cycle of products, units and units manufactured by Transmashholding JSC will be transformed. Developers see the prospect of using the product in multi-industry segments (for example, in logistics and hybrid leasing).

"Flucom - Cloud Solutions"

Focused on blockchain solutions in industry, starting in 2017. We developed the Event Registration Database (BDRS, Patent No. 2704532 of 20/09/2017), which helps to reliably record the production process, as well as the ROBOiR cloud service for the effective organization of the maintenance and repair process.

Orlan System

The company is developing a digital platform project for the construction market, working in collaboration with the largest banks and developers. The focus is the introduction of smart contracts in the entire chain of construction and investment projects.

Marketing Logic

The company completed several successful blockchain projects: developed crypto exchange modules, a mobile application for mining and exchanging cryptocurrencies, several cryptocurrencies (forks) based on Etherium, created an interstock bot for automated (algorithmic) arbitration trading, and a browser for mining cryptocurrencies.

HSE

The Higher School of Economics runs the master's program "Electronic Business and Digital Innovation." The educational organization was among the first in Russia to launch a course on distributed registers with a focus on payment systems. HSE students and graduate students conduct research on the development of various blockchain-based systems, the integration of blockchain with the Internet of Things, digital currencies of central banks, etc.

According to the expert assessment of Web3 Tech, the blockchain technology market in business and the state in 2023 amounted to more than 7 billion rubles. At the same time, most of them are solutions for the financial sector, they account for 5 billion rubles (about 70% of the total market). The main driver of the direction in the company was called the CFA. About 1.5 billion rubles were invested in projects related to the public sector, and the rest took about 500 million rubles, notes Matvey Voitov.

Mikhail Chekanov, General Director of Industrial Cryptosystems, calls the figure of 2 billion rubles in 2023, while referring to the volume of the legal market for the development and integration of blockchain solutions in Russia.

At the same time, it should be noted that almost a third of this volume is Blockchain FTS, and a good half is the budgets of captive companies of large financial and industrial groups. The volume of the legal blockchain services market is formally significantly higher, its visible part can be estimated at 7 billion rubles in 2023, but at the same time the main volume of revenue is made by one project, he comments.

Roman Cherepanov, CEO of Flaucom - Cloud Solutions, believes that the potential in the production sector is more than 5.5 billion rubles.

About 700 million rubles amounted to the total revenue of Sk Fintech Hub resident companies in 2023. This was told by Pavel Novikov, Executive Director of Skolkovo Fintech Hub (ВЭБ.РФ Group).

Most of the respondents found it difficult to give specific figures.

Thus, Alexander Nam, Managing Director, Director of the Blockchain Laboratory of Sberbank PJSC, noted that today it is quite difficult to accurately assess the amount of financing of the blockchain market in Russia, since many information is closed.

Andrei Lupiy, founder of the Orlan System platform, believes that it is too early to calculate the benefits now - the technology is only being introduced into the real sector, and the effect can be considered "in a couple of years."

The Russian market is two orders of magnitude smaller than the Western and Chinese markets, says Mikhail Chekanov. Its individual segments in the Russian Federation "are actually regulated in such a way that it makes no sense for startups to even look in their direction." For example, one of the drivers of the development of the Western market for corporate blockchain systems is solutions for tracing goods - from bananas and coffee to rocket components. And in Russia there is already a centralized labeling platform.

Blockchain "as is" is needed where there is free competition for assets. And if it is not needed, then it is easier and more efficient to build a centralized service. It is expensive and difficult to develop standards, grow diptech and ecosystems based on it, and therefore it turns out that it is not always necessary, the expert believes.

A negative role in the development of the market at one time was played by a boom in technology, when blockchain was often attached to projects only "for show." During this period, some companies took over a significant part of the market, promising customers "wonderful wizardry and other special effects." As a result, for many large customers, blockchain has become a word with negative connotation.

Also, according to Mikhail Chekanov, pilots in the field of cross-border settlements are periodically announced and launched, which have become much more after the start of the SVO. But in this direction there are too many organizational and political problems associated with the construction of an alternative financial and settlement system so that we can talk about some serious breakthroughs in the near future - most of the initiatives so far "are adventures of different levels."

In addition, a number of experts at once talk about the difficulties associated with legislative regulation.

Alexander Nam, Managing Director, Director of the Blockchain Laboratory, Sberbank PJSC:

Most likely, we will see more and more digital services of the state based on distributed data and the application of tokenization. A separate area to which interest is only growing is calculations based on blockchain technology in the context of the current difficulties of international payments. Since the legislation has not yet been formed, now market participants are exploring potential opportunities and testing various solutions.

Roman Cherepanov, CEO of Flaucom - Cloud Solutions:

In the real manufacturing sector, the market is only developing and strong development is expected. Interest will arise in "notarial" decisions, that is, those that allow you to reliably record various actions for the possibility of subsequent assessment and analysis. The problem is the lack of recognition of the legal force of blockchain fixation. For example, it would be possible to use blockchain solutions in supervision, fixing actions on industrial safety, to confirm the actions of the parties, etc.

Irina Yakovleva, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Center for the Circulation of Rights to the Results of Creative Activity:

Today, legislation and law enforcement practice lack a unified approach to defining the concepts of blockchain technology and a distributed register.

In Russian legislation, the concept of "distributed register" is contained in paragraph 7 of Art. 1 of the Federal Law of July 31, 2020 No. 259-FZ "On digital financial assets, digital currency and on amendments to certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation." In particular, a distributed registry refers to a set of databases in which the identity of the contained information is provided on the basis of established algorithms (algorithm). However, any database that has its own algorithm and creates a backup copy can fall under this definition. Moreover, this law regulates relations arising from the issue, accounting and circulation of CFA, the peculiarities of the activities of the operator of the information system in which their release is carried out, and the operator of the exchange of digital financial assets, as well as relations arising from the circulation of digital currency in the Russian Federation.

The expert notes that it is impossible to identify blockchain technologies, a distributed register and digital financial assets and, accordingly, talk about the legal regulation of blockchain, while considering only the legal regulation of digital financial assets. In addition to CFA, there is a wide range of blockchain-based solutions.

It seems necessary to improve legislation in the field of both civil and financial law, securing the concepts and legal regimes of blockchain technology, a distributed register and smart contracts, which will create the possibility of effective legal regulation, the formation of uniform judicial practice and law enforcement, "sums up Irina Yakovleva.

In addition to legislative "lapping," the natural difficulty of implementation has not gone anywhere, which is tied to a large resource intensity. The use of TPP entails serious investment in the infrastructure that should support the technology.

As Mikhail Komarov, professor at the Higher School of Business at the Higher School of Economics, notes, the key risk of implementing blockchain projects is that if a specific solution design is made incorrectly or does not take into account any restrictions, it is almost impossible to transfer the system from one platform or design to another state or incurs colossal costs.

Alexander Lutseev, director of particularly significant projects of the Ctrl2GO Group of Companies, notes that the blockchain technology itself is a decentralized solution and at the moment, as an independent solution, has no prospects for commercialization, but only as part of a product based on it. And according to Matvey Voitov, Marketing Director of Web3 Tech, despite the fact that the industrial sector has significant potential for blockchain technologies, so far there are no noticeable projects even in supply chain management - one of the most practical scenarios for applying blockchain.

Also, blockchain projects have some nuances in the field of security.

Sergey Kaurov, General Director of Factorin:

At the current stage of development, the [financial decentralized] system has a number of disadvantages, for example: the need for oversupply, liquidity deficit, complicated access to work with tools, vulnerability to cyber attacks, the absence of the traditional KYC/AML institute.

Pavel Novikov, Executive Director of Skolkovo Fintech Hub (ВЭБ.РФ Group):

Among our residents there are solutions to help ensure the security of transactions in cryptocurrency. The AML Crypto team last year conducted investigations into the search for stolen funds from crypto wallets totaling more than $20 million. The company also launched a new product for individuals, cryptocurrency owners - AML-checks of cryptocurrency addresses, allowing you to check counterparties before making transactions in order to avoid risks.

Andrei Lupiy, founder of the Orlan System platform, believes that in 2024-2025 there will be an "explosion" of the introduction of blockchain into the so-called "real sector" of the economy. In his opinion, now there is only a point application - piloting different services on blockchain technologies in order to then bring services "to the masses."

This is due to the fact that there have been changes in the legislation not so long ago that allow the application of innovative blockchain solutions, - said the expert. - Taking into account the development of the banking sector, decisions on the automation of mutual settlements on transactions will be developed. To such products as a letter of credit, escrow accounts - a service of secure transactions on smart contracts will be added. And the topic of the CFA will actively develop - this is a financial market that is very interesting and will allow attracting money to large companies - they understand this and will invest there themselves.

Industrial Cryptosystems expects that, taking into account the development of already announced pilot projects, in 2024-2025 the development market based on distributed solutions will grow 3-4 times, and the market for legal services will "unwind" much more slowly, but by 2030 it will grow "by two orders of magnitude" - "the technology is too good not to use it."

Mikhail Chekanov, General Director of Industrial Cryptosystems JSC:

What is encouraging? Firstly, our rather strong fintech, who simply cannot miss the next revolution. Mobile technology has upended the consumer market - today almost every consumer has several banks in their pocket. Distributed registers will allow banks to integrate directly into business processes - non-connected companies will inevitably lose competition due to higher (by an order of magnitude) transaction costs.

According to the expert, the introduction of the "digital ruble" can be called another positive phenomenon. On the one hand, commercial banks will be forced to generate value for customers by providing new services. Every year it will be more and more difficult to "earn on caviar" with traditional settlement and cash services. On the other hand, business will be able to embed the "digital ruble" in its operations.

In the public sector of the industry, the love of our regulators and supervisory authorities for all kinds of registers will help. At some point, the quantity should go into quality - hyperreesters will appear with the integration of state and commercial services, accounting systems of enterprises and organizations. That is, we will come to the network architecture that we are now building in industry solutions based on the Hyperledger Fabric protocol - a kind of OGAS 2.0 will inevitably appear, Mikhail Chekanov is convinced.

According to Matvey Voitov, Marketing Director of Web3 Tech, one of the growth points for blockchain may be the Russian industrial sector, undergoing an accelerated transformation right now. Also, the Russian experience in using technology in the public sector (subject to its further development) can become one of the significant areas in the framework of activities to export Russian technologies to friendly countries. Thus, in Africa and Asia there is a request for trusted state information systems.

We can talk about the demand for TRR as a trusted infrastructure for digital transformation in the Russian public sector - the technology is not used everywhere, but several Russian blockchain projects are unique in scale in the global state experience of using technology. This is a digital platform of the distributed register of the Central Bank of the Federal Tax Service of Russia and projects based on this platform (for example, a repository of machine-readable powers of attorney), a federal DEG platform, blockchain initiatives of a number of state corporations, for example, Roscosmos, the expert shared.

In the field of copyright, the РЦИС.РФ project is actively developing, part of the network of which was Pravo Tech (Pravo Tech). This will allow network users, including judges, to see information about the beginning and end of disputes regarding intellectual property objects and rights to them, in accordance with the data from the File of Arbitration Cases. The network also plans to integrate with notary information systems, the Unified Register of Russian Software, EGISU NIOKTR, catalogs of mandatory copies, information systems of the Federal Tax Service and the Federal Customs Service of Russia. One of the promising areas is to improve the mechanism for combating pirated content on the Internet by excluding it from search results. Irina Yakovleva, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Center for the Circulation of Rights to the Results of Creative Activity, told TAdviser about this.

Mikhail Komarov, professor at the Higher School of Business at the Higher School of Economics:

At the moment, the issues of transferring not personal data of citizens (users), but "links" to the corresponding data cell in the distributed register, where this data is stored, are being actively worked out, which through special operations will allow them to be downloaded and used from there, while notifying both the owner of personal data and the storage system about access to such data. This can significantly increase the security of personal data storage.

Since 2023, the topic of artificial intelligence has eclipsed everything else in IT, and blockchain is no exception. Rather, even so: AI can affect the acceleration of blockchain development, and together they can be much more than separately. That's what experts say about it.

Matvey Voitov, Marketing Director of Web3 Tech:

Blockchain, as an infrastructure technology, has good development potential combined with other end-to-end technologies - for example, machine learning and AI, industrial internet, cybersecurity. Acting as a trusted data bus, blockchain infrastructure can be the basis of large-scale ecosystems - both state and commercial.

According to the Web3 Tech team, the maturity of the current generation of end-to-end technologies and their increasing recognition among customers will allow us to start implementing such synergistic projects in the near future.

Mikhail Chekanov, General Director of Industrial Cryptosystems JSC:

Distributed registry technology has actually passed by an already fading wave of digital transformation. Five years ago, distributed registries were one of the priorities, but the corresponding strategy was never approved - "oranges will not be born from aspen." Now the distributors have actually disappeared from the priorities of the new data economy - everything has been eclipsed by AI, which, apparently, will develop everything else.

The expert notes that over the past five years, several serious technological platforms and dozens of ecosystems have appeared on the Chinese market, many of which have entered foreign markets. So today, fashion in trading and settlement systems is largely set by Chinese companies, which are already perceived by American companies as a real threat, up to the introduction of legislative restrictions on Chinese projects.

Andrey Massalsky, director of MAS-Vneshtrans:

Given the recent breakthrough in artificial intelligence, blockchain technology can be used to create traceable AI models. Thus, artificial intelligence allows you to find patterns when circulating data and on this basis create new scenarios. Blockchain, in turn, helps to eliminate errors and fraudulent data entry. New structures, patterns and behavioral properties created by AI can be verified in the blockchain, their authenticity can be confirmed. This can be used in a consumer-oriented business. For example, data obtained from retail customers through blockchain infrastructure can be used to automate the promotion of retail sales using AI.

According to the 2020 Mindsmith and Clifford Chance study "Blockchain Revolution in Banks and Financial Institutions," Sberbank had the potential to create a monopoly at the country level in terms of applying and studying blockchain in the financial sector. A survey of TAdviser experts partially illustrated this statement: Sberbank was most often mentioned as the fintech company most prominent in the blockchain market.

According to the FinTech Association for June 2023 (Fintech - Radar 03), the platform of the specialized company Atomaiz, also the leader in popularity, competed on equal terms with Sberbank in terms of the number of CFA issues.

The question of "whom to consider the main beneficiary in the Russian Federation" within the framework of this review is closed only partially. The largest market share is occupied by projects of state orientation and in the financial sphere (CFA). In the game, it is more corporations, but not startups. In many areas, the use of blockchain is still a point, although individual pilots look promising.

Worldwide, investor interest in blockchain projects declined significantly by the end of 2022, according to Blockdata. However, some experts interviewed by TAdviser in early 2024 are anticipating a significant growth in the Russian market in the coming years.