IGF 2019 WS #287 Building a multistakeholder approach to secure crypto assets
Organizer 1: Hirotaka Nakajima, Mercari, Inc.
Organizer 2: Mariko Kobayashi, Keio University/Mercari, Inc.
Speaker 1: Takanashi Yuta, Government, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 2: Shin'ichiro Matsuo, Technical Community, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 3: Satish Babu, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 4: Louise Marie Hurel, Civil Society, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Q1. Can we apply a multi-stakeholder approach to discuss governance and security of blockchain-based finance?
Q2. What kind of stakeholder is needed to discuss issues around crypto assets and blockchain-based finance?
Q3. How can we engage those stakeholders to the table?
Q4. How to provide a secure platform for customers(civil society)?
Q5. How does the government deal with crypto assets regarding financial regulation?
Q6. What can we learn from the existing forum or meeting such as IGF and ICANN?
Q7. Where do we make a mutual understanding of technologies and regulations?
Q8. How to make a regulation without hindering evolution of emerging technology?
Q9. What kind of issues do we have to prioritize?
Q10. What kind of working groups are formed based on the priority?
Q11. How can governments and regulators support?
Relevance to Theme: A secure financial platform is a crucial part of the world's economic activities. Crypto assets and blockchain technology could be a game-changing technology to achieve this.
Though many crypto assets custodians (e.g., virtual assets exchange) face security issues such as asset leakage, no common security consideration or operational practices are agreed among the entire ecosystem.
Therefore, security and safety to crypto assets and blockchain technology is awaited.
Relevance to Internet Governance: The Internet governance(I-G) community has evolved based on “a multi-stakeholder model” to tackle various issues of Internet resources. It is one of the success cases for people around the world to cooperate for solving problems. We propose to apply the same model for the governance of emerging technologies and society.
Crypto assets are well known as one of the use cases of "blockchain," emerging technology. Its market has emerged in these several years. Many custodians have been launched in Asia Pacific Area, in China, Russia, Singapore, Japan, Australia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, and Korea for example. Each county has started to discuss its regulation for the trading of crypto assets. Of course, we need the voice of users, civil society.
There are many concerns about the management of risks on crypto assets, such as Know Your Customer(KYC), Anti-Money Laundering(AML), Counter Financing of Terrorism(CFT) and leakage. Some of the custodians have been attacked by hackers, then they leaked customers' assets due to lack of security on their system. Though several industrial associations or technical alliances have been formed, there is neither global nor national/regional platform to discuss those problems by a balanced stakeholder yet.
Even though regulators and authorities are working on making a regulation for VASPs(Virtual Asset Service Provider), the rules and technologies of crypto assets and blockchain are rapidly changing by the discussion among the developers. As a result, the ecosystem couldn't assure that investor/consumer are protected from those incidents. We must have a multi-stakeholder process to address both technical and policy issues.
Therefore, we propose to apply the multi-stakeholder model to discussing crypto assets in this Internet Governance Forum where every stakeholder sit at the table together.
Round Table - Circle - 90 Min
Description: 【Intoroduction: 5min】
The moderator briefly introduces backgrounds of issues. We also plan to organize a similar workshop in APrIGF2019. Topics which discussed there will be shared in this part.
【Sharing each region or stakeholder’s opinion: 48min】
Firstly, each expert introduces governance structure of crypto assets in their local region or stakeholder. Each expert will share their perspective of their interesting issues on the governance of crypto assets. Each pitch takes within 5 minutes. We do not use any slides here to encourage interactive discussion between participants. Every after expert’ speaking, we have 5minutes for Q&A from audiences.
They expect present following topics below ;
- Common framework of security management of blockchain-based finance (crypto assets)
- Relationship between stakeholders
- Global collaboration (preventing regulatory arbitration)
- AML/CTF
【Making a recommendation: 30min】
The second half of the session will focus on making a recommendation for the global community to propose a multi-stakeholder forum to discuss issues around the regulation and security of crypto assets. A moderator will share a document sheet on a screen so that everyone can understand points which are discussed
The link will be shared with remote participants, too. At the end of this part, we will have a consensus by hamming to publish a document.
【Wrap up: 5 mins】
The moderator briefly describes discussion and our work in the session, then suggest some future work.
Expected Outcomes: Each participant including speakers and audiences brings their view. Then discussing and make a consensus on the requirements of the multi-stakeholder forum for crypto assets.
The outcome of this session will be a recommendation to launch a multi-stakeholder forum to discuss security, regulation and technical issues on crypto assets and blockchain-based finance. We will publish a recommendation for a global society. We also plan to share the URL of the document on the IGF Webpage(workshop page). We will also encourage participants of this session to share the document with local communities.
Mariko Kobayashi, Private Sector, Asia-Pacific Group
Hirotaka Nakajima, Private Sector, Asia-Pacific Group
Hirotaka Nakajima, Private Sector, Asia-Pacific Group
Regarding online moderation, we prepare one moderator to help them.
Online participants can join us via WebEx. We accept both text message and call to take the floor.
- Text message: Participants can share their opinion without worrying about the network connection. An online moderator will speak instead of them.
- Call: They can join the session with the WebEx system, however, we may recommend using a text message if your/our Internet connection is not good enough.
To facilitate an interactive discussion, we will prepare the Open mic in the center of the room. We expect every participant freely shares an opinion or asks a question to experts.
Our online moderator will use WebEx chat to ask for questions or opinions during the workshop.
Proposed Additional Tools: Use Twitter, Facebook to catch up the ideas and opinions from remote participants.
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