By Ijeoma Olorunfemi
The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) on Wednesday, said the global market for blockchain technology was expected to grow over $39billion by 2025.
Director-General of NITDA, Mallam Kashifu Inuwa, said this at the Blockchain Summit Day at the ongoing Digital Nigeria Conference and Exhibition organised by the agency in Abuja.
Inuwa said the success of cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), Metaverse, and Web3 was beginning to take over industrial and financial space.
“With Blockchain Technology supporting these new-age concepts, we can expect that the future will belong to decentralised resources.
“After cryptocurrencies gained much traction, blockchain technology emerged as one of the most promising technologies to transform businesses.
“Today, many large and medium-sized enterprises are exploring the Blockchain’s potential to make a place in the competitive market.
“The global market for blockchain technology is expected to grow over USD 39 billion by 2025,”Inuwa said.
The D-G also said that the NFT market alone was having a steady growth as financial and other activities went from physical to digital.
Inuwa further said that Blockchain was at a point where large corporations and governments were beginning to comprehend its potential to improve people’s lives and build more resilient organisations.
He explained that the metaverse concept had become a real phenomenon, with many popular platforms enjoying massive user bases.
The D-G said: “One of the significant aspects of the metaverse design is decentralisation, which would enable transparency and seamless access to the metaverse.
“Asides from decentralisation, metaverse also relies on blockchain capabilities for ensuring user governance privileges alongside verifiable provenance.”
Inuwa added that blockchain pushed for the emergence of digital transparency and integrity, leading to extensive changes in business models and governmental functions.
According to him, ”it will facilitate the development of the Nigerian digital economy by supporting our digital transformation agenda in a way that promotes efficiency, transparency, and productivity.
“Innovators in various fields are maximising the benefits of this incredible technology from medicine to agriculture, finance,governance, education, transport and across the global supply chain.
“Innovators are exploring ways to use blockchain technologies to disrupt and transform traditional process models.
“With its decentralised and trustless nature, Blockchain technology can lead to new opportunities,benefit industries through greater transparency, enhanced security, and easier traceability.”
Inuwa said that NITDA was inclined to deploy its statutory responsibility towards innovative technologies to develop strategies for a healthy IT ecosystem that encapsulates emerging technology such as Blockchain.
He said: “We developed a Blockchain Adoption Strategy to facilitate the effective utilisation of Blockchain technology towards creating a digital economy.
“The strategy outlines the roadmap and schemes for the adoption of Blockchain technology by the government in the digital transformation agenda, in a way that supports efficiency, transparency, and productivity.”
Inuwa added that as the technology kept driving new business and service models, the agency had realised the need to deepen the adoption of the strategy to protect citizens and ensure fair markets that were innovation driven.
He also said they were fostering the healthy growth,safety of the nation’s digital economy through the right implementation strategy that would drive the adoption of the technology by both the public and private sectors.
Inuwa said: “We are currently piloting the implementation blueprint in two Federal Government sectors and building a Proof of Concept (POC) on the implementation of the National Blockchain Strategies.
“In this regard, the agency is creating a national infrastructure for the deployment of blockchain solutions in a government institution that integrates identity and incentive platforms.
“In the same vein, the agency is taking steps to replicate and implement regulatory soundboxes that have been adopted by countries like the UK, India, Australia, Canada, and Denmark.
“Regulatory sandboxes will enable participants to test products and services on a small scale in a controlled environment, reducing innovation costs and barriers to entry.
“It also allows regulators to collect important information about innovative products before deciding which regulatory action to take.”
Blockchain is a shared, immutable ledger that facilitates the process of recording transactions and tracking assets in a business network.
The theme of the conference is “Digital Transformation: A Path to Sustainable Digital Economy”.(NAN)
