TOOLS TO STIMULATE BLOCKCHAIN: APPLICATION OF REGULATORY SANDBOXES, SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONES AND PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS

Abstract

The Blockchain technology has significant and almost limitless potential. However, today their use for implementation is associated with the problems of lack of high-quality legal regulation of this technology; technical standards for its application; investments required for its development. These problems and the search for their solutions are especially relevant now, in the context of the financial crisis. In this regard, the purpose of the article is to analyse the legal mechanisms and tools that make up special and experimental regimes, the use of which contributed to the introduction of the Blockchain technology into industrial production, identifying their features in relation to individual countries, problems associated with their implementation and finding solutions. The research is based on comparative legal and system analysis, as well as methods of legal modelling and content analysis. The author comes to the conclusion that in order to increase the attractiveness of the legal climate for the implementation of the Blockchain technology, it is necessary, first, to develop a “high-quality” legal regulation, which will be possible in the case of prior testing of an innovative product (service) based on the application of this technology in conditions of the experimental legal regime (regulatory sandbox); second, to develop standards for normative and technical regulation of this technology; third, to improve legislation on the main tools aimed at stimulating investment in the creation and implementation of digital innovations, and Blockchain technology, including - on special economic zones, public-private partnerships and state support of companies-developers of the Blockchain services for industrial production.