Mr Shigeya Suzuki of Keio University has asked for a side meeting on distributed ledger-based financial technology, which will be held on Thursday morning at 10am in the Coller Room. It seems likely that the room may not be large enough, and I will try to find a larger space. He asked that I share the session description: CFP: IETF’s relationship to the future of distributed ledger technology As several people mentioned in the past, it seems valuable to introduce the way we have developed/are developing the Internet technology, followed by working on the governance of the Internet, to experts who need to discuss the future of some new influential global technologies, such as distributed ledger technology (DLT). IETF and other technical communities should discuss openly to develop open standards. For the deployment of the technology, also important is to discuss multiple stakeholders from the point of view of the social impact of the technology. Keio University, Georgetown University, and Japanese Financial Services Agency have been discussing in the past several months on how the experiences of the Internet technology and its governance on the deployment, to find a competent and reasonable way to developing and using DLT. As a part of the dialogue, the team mentioned above made little progress at the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting in Fukuoka [1], to make financial regulators understand to establish a multi-stakeholder community in the DLT ecosystem is crucial. Please be surprised by reading the script of the speech of introduction of the panel discussion [4] held as the official G20 seminar in Fukuoka [2], moderated by Prof. Jun Murai, with Dr. Adam Back as one of the panelists. IETF community might feel distant from this topic; however, if DLT will be part of the basis of a future platform on the Internet, the IETF community might be responsible for the technology. Moreover, the tight relationship with crypto-assets in the context of application-level deployment means that we should discuss DLT with stakeholders, including regulatory agencies and financial institutions. Our team succeeded in convincing regulators that conversation is crucial. We need to be part of the conversation. The purpose of this meeting is to inform what is happening, then starting a dialogue on the topic. We also want to find some motivated souls to work on this effort together. Please come to the meeting. [1] G20 Finance Ministers and Central bank governors meeting https://www.g20fukuoka2019.mof.go.jp/en/ [2] G20 SEMINAR, G20 HIGH-LEVEL SEMINAR ON FINANCIAL INNOVATION, “OUR FUTURE IN THE DIGITAL AGE https://www.g20fukuoka2019.mof.go.jp/en/meetings/20190608_1.html [3] Opening Remarks: Taro Aso, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Finance, and Minister of State for Financial Services https://www.fsa.go.jp/common/conference/danwa/20190608/01.pdf [4] Introductory remarks, Toshihide Endo, Commissioner, Japan Financial Services Agency https://www.fsa.go.jp/common/conference/danwa/20190608/05.pdf
