Nasdaq blockchain voting system declared a success, the next step is practical application

Exchange operator Nasdaq has published the results of a blockchain-based electronic voting experiment it conducted in Estonia last year.

Nasdaq yesterday published a detailed statement detailing the blockchain project, which began in February last year. At the time, company representatives said they hoped to increase participation by reducing the complexity and cost of the shareholder voting process.

The article concludes on this project:

The project successfully demonstrated the use of blockchain beyond transaction settlement.

Nasdaq used Estonia’s e-Residency platform as the basis for creating voting accounts.

Nasdaq announced its partnership with Chain in mid-2015. With the help of blockchain startup Chain, the system uses digital assets as a representation of voting rights (blockchain tokens are used for voting) and distributes them to individual shareholders.

Nasdaq described in detail how the blockchain system would work:

The system expands on the traditional use of blockchain to record security ownership. Based on this information, the system allocates voting rights assets and voting token assets to each shareholder. If you hold both voting rights assets, users can vote on each meeting agenda by sending tokens.

According to the company, the feedback received on the system was mostly positive. At the same time, participants in this experiment also emphasized mobile support. They believed that Nasdaq should develop a dedicated voting app.

Recently, Nasdaq successfully tested a solution provided by LHV Group, which is committed to blockchain technology and has developed a digital wallet that uses Bitcoin as a payment medium.

In other parts of the world, a large number of exchanges have begun to explore similar concepts, and proxy voting companies such as Broadridge are more sought-after partners. Nasdaq's next step is to formally deploy the blockchain voting system framework and apply the experience learned from the Estonian project to other areas:

We will apply what we learned from this successful proof-of-concept project to Nasdaq’s internal systems as well as client solutions.