Georgia’s Ministry of Justice is considering on-chaining the country’s land registry and tokenizing real estate, and has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with public blockchain network Hedera.
According to a Monday announcement from Georgia’s Ministry of Justice, the government has signed a memorandum of understanding with Hedera, a public blockchain with permissioned node operations. In a meeting between Georgian Justice Minister Parta Saria and representatives of Hedera, the two sides discussed the possibility of integrating blockchain technology into public infrastructure.
Georgian authorities said they are considering transferring data from the National Public Registry to a blockchain network, which they hope will “further strengthen the protection of property rights, the transparency and reliability of the process.”
Tokenization of real estate is also being considered, much like the real world asset (RWA) tokenization project.
At this time, the agreement is a non-binding memorandum of understanding. According to the announcement, the next step will be to form a joint working group with experts from the Ministry of Justice and the National Public Register Office.
Meeting between the Ministry of Georgia and Hedera representatives. sauce: Georgia Ministry of Justice
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It’s not Georgia’s first rodeo.
Georgia has long supported blockchain technology in government. In early February 2017, the Georgia state government signed an agreement to use the Bitcoin blockchain to verify real estate transactions. According to a report from late April of the same year, the country already had more than 100,000 real estate records on-chain.
Since then, governments have continued to promote blockchain adoption. About a year ago, the United National Movement coalition partnered with Rarilabs to release a new blockchain solution for government. Various political and technological initiatives are attempting to expand the use of blockchain in public administration, but not all have been adopted by the ruling Georgian Dream party.
Related: Tether signs memorandum of understanding with Georgia to develop Bitcoin P2P infrastructure
In June 2024, Natia Turnava, Acting Governor of the Central Bank of Georgia, and Varram Evanoidze, Head of the Bank’s Financial and Supervisory Technology Development Department, met with Ripple executive James Wallis to explore possible cooperation in the digitalization of Georgia’s economy.
This followed reports in early November 2023 that the central bank had selected blockchain payment network Ripple Labs as its official technology partner to develop a central bank digital currency. This followed the bank’s announcement two months ago of its plans to conduct a limited-access trial of a CBDC.
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