New Report on EU Support for Blockchain and DLTs in SMEs

Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) have the potential to disrupt the ways we organise finance, health care, and beyond. The EU supports this novel technology through the Horizon 2020 INNOSUP Actions and its funding of five projects.

Even though Blockchain is primarily linked as the technology that enables the existence of cryptocurrency, it can be used in many other sectors and industries. It has the power to transform financial systems, industry, trade and public sector. This report further explores the multidimensional impacts of distributed ledger technologies.

Blockchain technology can provide significant benefits to European industry, economy and society as a whole. Therefore, the European Commission supports blockchain on the policy, legal, regulatory, and funding fronts. To enhance Europe’s leading role in blockchain technology, the European Commission has launched different initiatives.

The INNOSUP actions funded five projects supporting SMEs in adopting blockchain and DLTs. They aim to remove the barriers of uptake by matching service providers with possible adopters.

The newly published report displays the five projects and summarises their results. Overall, approx. EUR 10 million was spent, of which EUR 5.1 million was directed to SMEs. The projects received more than 1,100 applications and selected over 300 SMEs and use-cases, employing both blockchain and DLTs.

These projects already delivered several successes and real-life applications of DLTs offered on the market.