Romania to adopt Web3, launch NFT Marketplace

Romania’s National Institute for Research and Development in Informatics (ICI Bucharest) is launching an in-house nonfungible token (NFT) trading platform to promote Web3 adoption in the country.

The institutional NFT platform, ICI D|Services, will go live on April 26 to connect private and public sector institutions with consumers. The platform is predominantly a marketplace for NFTs, allowing individual and institutional users to mint, manage, and trade NFTs.

Over the past five years, ICI Bucharest has predominantly focused on research and development. Still, it has shifted its focus to exploring blockchain, Web3, and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) as the space gains global traction.

According to Gheorghe, NFTs have gained significant traction in recent years due to their capacity to generate scarce and distinctive digital assets that can be applied to various use cases. In turn, this has made them valuable assets for institutions, resulting in the late 2021 proposition of the NFT platform within ICI Bucharest.

Midway through 2022, the institution began developing and implementing the marketplace system’s architecture in collaboration with MultiversX, the first strategic initiative utilizing the blockchain infrastructure provider.

As MultiversX CEO Benjamin Mincu explained, the partnership also includes the development of a decentralized Domain Name System (DNS) and Top-Level Domain (TLD) ecosystem.

Gheorghe, who possesses a Ph.D. in Blockchain Technology and Industrial Engineering, states that the Romanian Government, through the Secretariat–General and the Romanian Ministry of Research, Innovation, and Digitalization, has supported the project:

 

    Our institute wants to create a bridge between the young generations and the public institutions values, initiating a comfort zone for the interactions with the digital space.

 

The introduction of the platform will feature five exclusive NFT collections created in collaboration with a small number of notable Romanian athletes, organizations, and institutions.

This includes the Romanian Olympic and Sports Committee, 18-year-old David Popovici, the Romanian news agency Agerpres, the national philately organization Romfilatelia, and the Central University Library in Bucharest.

Gheorghe believes that the Romanian Government’s support of innovative projects such as ICI D|Services increases the nation’s economic potential by generating new revenue streams and nurturing economic development as well as an entrepreneurial culture:

Blockchain technology increases the efficiency of the institutions, to approach solid use cases based on digital asset management, transparency, security in various institutional operations, such as in education, health, transport, land registration, supply chain management.

Mincu echoed these sentiments, emphasizing the Romanian Government’s commitment to embracing technology and nurturing new opportunities for citizen, business, and government interaction.