“Today’s announcement of co‑ordinated international action on cryptoassets is a major step forward, marking another important milestone towards the widespread and co-ordinated approach to combat tax evasion through greater transparency and exchange of information,” Secretary-General Cormann said.

“We strongly welcome the extensive support being shown for quick action to make the international exchange of information collected under the OECD standard on cryptoasset reporting a reality. The international community can count on the OECD and the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes to ensure that the tax transparency architecture remains both up-to-date and effective going forward.”

The Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) is a key component of the International Standards for Automatic Exchange of Information in Tax Matters developed by the OECD under a G20 mandate. It provides for the automatic exchange of tax-relevant information on cryptoassets and comes against the backdrop of a rapid adoption of the use of cryptoassets for a wide range of investment and financial uses.

LBChain is the world’s first blockchain-based sandbox developed by a financial market regulator, the Bank of Lithuania. The platform was developed through a pre-commercial procurement and is now opening up to international start-ups as well as financial and FinTech companies to test their solutions on the LBChain. The project combines the creation of innovative blockchain-based solutions with supporting their application in the financial sector as well as improving the quality of regulatory requirements and attracting foreign direct investment.

The LBChain project is divided into three stages. After the first design stage, the Bank of Lithuania selected three service providers: Deloitte (IE), IBM (PL) and Tieto (LT). During the second development stage, the three service providers will be working on two tasks. First, they will join forces with the selected FinTech companies to create the LBChain platform.

Second, together with the Bank of Lithuania, they will consult the FinTech companies on developing a specific blockchain-based product that would meet their needs. The FinTech companies will then be able to test this product within the LBChain environment in the third stage. The LBChain pre-commercial procurement receives assistance from the European Structural and Investment Funds and is assisted by the European Assistance For Innovation Procurement.

In a memorandum of understanding, the finance ministers of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have agreed to co-operate to expand and develop their economies, a process that would include promoting distributed ledger technologies to aid in capital market innovations.

The memorandum says:

"The Estonian Ministry, the Latvian Ministry and the Lithuanian Ministry recognise the importance of the development of the capital market and a stronger institutional framework to handle the cross-border challenges in the Baltic States… [and] supporting the development of capital market innovations and new technologies with a consideration for regional FinTech solutions, such as DLT."