Sweden Tests Blockchain-Based Land Registry

Land registry is yet another example of how blockchain – the technology that powers Bitcoin – may be used to improve the systems behind other key aspects of our economy. Sweden has taken a step forward in this realm. Its government, in a partnership with ChromaWay, Kairos Future and Telia, is launching a pilot to register land transactions and titles on a blockchain designed for those purposes. If the experiment succeeds, it will shorten the time between the agreement for a purchase or a sale, and the transfer of the title. This experiment may also have other unexpected beneficiaries.

Blockchain Land Registry Applied to Other Cases

There is no doubt that everyone will be able to benefit from a blockchain-based land registry system. Banks, tax agents and real estate developers will find that their work will be more efficient once they can go into the land registry blockchain and go beyond the authenticity of the transaction to understand the sales numbers. This will enhance government transparency and tax assessment in many cases, but it can also serve to solve a key problem that poor people in developing countries face every day.

The Peruvian economist, Hernando de Soto Polar, is a world renowned expert in informal economics and property rights. He has suggested that the use of blockchain to register land titles in countries like Peru, where the system has left many people living in lands for which no official land titles exist, could serve as a key factor for economic development. De Soto sustains that these land title blockchains could clear the ground for the appropriate development of mining projects in Peru for instance, since it will make exploration and operation of fields clear to the local communities, the companies and the government.

Success in Sweden is Success Elsewhere

If the experiment in Sweden succeeds, it will provide a blueprint for other countries and territories to follow. This could be good news for those interested in development and the fight against poverty. Probably the main factors that will determine if this experiment in Sweden will lend itself for widespread application, are the ability to break with tradition in how land is registered, and cost vs benefit analysis. Slowly but surely, blockchain powered systems will change many aspects of our daily lives. Hopefully, governments, businesses and citizens all around will be able to embrace this and other blockchain experiments, in order to promote economic development and progress everywhere.

Click here to access ChromaWay’s white paper about the experiment in Sweden.