Singapore’s IMDA announces initiative to foster blockchain ecosystem

The Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), a statutory board of the Singapore government, in putting up seed funding to foster blockchain ecosystem in the country, The Business Times reported.

The objective is to support industry incumbents to build platforms that will connect various stakeholders including blockchain special interest groups, solution providers and other related services providers.

Importantly, the platform must include guides on enterprise blockchain adoption, a directory listing of the Singapore blockchain community allowing interested firms to engage with other parties, and must connect with other global blockchain communities, such as those in China and Silicon Valley.

The IMDA noted that blockchain technology’s mainstream adoption is being hampered by the technology’s nascent stage and lack of large-scale successful cases beyond the fintech sector. Due to this, there is a lack of established business models for end-user companies to help them understand how to work together using blockchain.

"This has resulted in the industry showing signs of siloed, specialised blockchain solutions rather than interoperable network blockchains, which would deliver the most benefit to users," it said.

In addition, the IMBA is going to launch another Blockchain Challenge which will seek proposals that offer solutions to business challenges using distributed ledger technology (DLT). Proposals are to required to have one or more partners to generate a working pilot prototype with.