IOTA Becomes Member of International Association for Trusted Blockchain Applications.

The IOTA Foundation has joined INATBA, the International Association for Trusted Blockchain Applications, a prominent European blockchain organization. The IOTA Foundation has just joined INATBA after participating in a number of worldwide activities. On April 25th, INATBA welcomed Mariana de la Roche, IOTA’s senior regulatory affairs specialist, to its board of directors. Mariana will have a big impact as a leader on the creation of regulatory rules and frameworks for the blockchain sector in Europe.

The goal of INATBA is to facilitate communication and cooperation amongst all participants in the crypto ecosystem, including but not limited to DLT builders, users, policymakers, and regulators, with the ultimate goal of accelerating the development and widespread acceptance of DLT.

The IOTA Foundation is one of 170 organizations that make up the International Association of Trade Promotion Agencies (INATBA), which was founded in 2019 in Brussels. Furthermore, IOTA participates in INATBA’s Privacy Working Group (PWG), Finance Working Group (FWG), and Social Impact & Sustainability Working Group (SISWG).

The IOTA Foundation, in collaboration with the Social effect and Sustainability Working Group (SISWG), has been working to provide a clear definition of social effect for blockchain activities and a methodology for measuring that impact.

Mariana de la Roche, Senior Regulatory Affairs Expert at IOTA, has been at the helm of SISWG’s attempts to create a universally applicable concept of “social impact” for all micro- and small-scale endeavors in this field. Blockchain efforts tackling social concerns may find it difficult to unite and achieve higher social effect collectively without a clear definition, methodology, or set of measures.

It also hinders businesses’ ability to quantify their positive social effect when seeking funding or new stakeholders. The SISWG has issued the Unified Definition of Social Impact for the Blockchain Industry in an effort to solve this problem. The IOTA foundation also helped shape the INATBA Crypto Guide for NGOs and Nonprofits. Fundraising via cryptocurrency and other digital assets is a major step forward for social impact groups. However, not all NGOs, non-profits, and social enterprises have the necessary crypto expertise and lack familiarity with the advantages and disadvantages of cryptocurrency. As a result, SISWG has produced a detailed handbook describing the essentials of accepting and managing bitcoin for philanthropic organizations.

In September of 2022, INATBA became a part of BC100+, the United Nations’ Blockchain for the UN Charter Values and the Sustainable Development Goals Action Plan 100+. BC100+ aims to raise public awareness about the positive environmental and social effects of blockchain technology. Also explored is how blockchain technology may be used to “rebuild trust, empower communities, assert accountabilities, and re-distribute value on a global scale” in order to combat “issues like inequality, poverty, and climate change.”