The Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia will use a distributed ledger system to communicate with private companies. In a commentary to CoinFox, Deputy Director Andrey Tsarikovsky shared his vision of the blockchain future.

CF: Which part of the document flow at FAS do you plan to transfer to blockchain?

AT: We plan to transfer to blockchain all communication between FAS and external commercial entities. It will significantly reduce paper documents inflow at the agency. However, all correspondence with government bodies will remain compliant to the current practice of document circulation. Our goal now is to switch as many commercial entities as possible to the electronic form of communication.

CF: What made you choose the Digital Ecosystem? What of the blockchain platforms is this project based on?

AT: We did not choose the system, we created it together with Sberbank. As of now, we have entered the stage of working prototype. The project is not based on any of the existing systems, it is built on an open protocol. That said, we are considering if it should be merged with existing solutions developed by consortiums.

CF: What benefits do you expect to get from transferring document flow to blockchain?

AT: The project is based on a totally new method of document authentication. It will reduce manpower expenses and eliminate information redundancy in the correspondence. This will speed up our communication with economic agents and significantly increase information transparency.

The Federal Antimonopoly Service has already had a test run of the Digital Ecosystem, a blockchain-based system for document circulation. In October, the regulator together with Sberbank successfully used the system to transfer a document between the organisations. In his comment to RBC last week, Tsarikovsky said that the system may go live as early as the first quarter of 2017.