Republic of Georgia to Develop Blockchain Land Registry

Bitcoin mining company BitFury has inked a deal with the Georgian government to develop a system for registering land titles using the blockchain.

BitFury will help develop the platform for the National Agency of Public Registry (NAPR), an office of the Georgian Ministry of Justice. Economist Hernando de Soto will assist in the development of the platform. Today de Soto is set to give a lecture on related issues during an event in Georgia's capital, Tbilisi.

According to BitFury, the platform will utilize a permissioned blockchain operated by the NAPR. This private blockchain will be tied to the bitcoin blockchain, the company said, suggesting a form of merge-mining will secure the land registry.

Papuna Ugrekhelidze, chairman of the NAPR, said in a statement that the project can boost title transparency and reduce the prevalence of fraud. The office did not respond to a request for additional comment.

Ugrekhelidze remarked:

“By building a Blockchain-based property registry and taking full advantage of the security provided by the Blockchain technology, the Republic of Georgia can show the world that we are a modern, transparent and corruption-free country that can lead the world in changing the way land titling is done and pave the way to additional prosperity for all.”

The bitcoin and blockchain space is no stranger to this particular use case. A much-vaunted deal between the government of Honduras and startup Factom made headlines last year, though the project appears to have stalled amid negotiations.

This article has been updated.

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