Three research documents on Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) agreed upon as final outcomes at the ITU-T FG established under Korea leadership… Scheduled to be developed into official international standards at ITU-T SG17.

The development of three preliminary research documents for the international standardization of distributed ledger technology led by Korea has been completed.

The National Radio Research Institute of the Ministry of Science and ICT announced that three preliminary standardization research documents related to distributed ledger technology, developed under Korea's leadership, were agreed upon as the final outcomes of the focus group at the ITU-T Distributed Ledger Technology Focus Group international meeting held in Geneva, Switzerland from July 29 to August 1.

Distributed Ledger Technology is a digital ledger in which participants within a distributed (Peer-to-Peer; P2P) network continuously update the list of all transactions. It is an information security technology designed to be advantageous against document forgery, alteration, and hacking by verifying integrity through a decentralized consensus mechanism when data states are changed or recorded.

These three research documents will be transferred to the ITU-T SG17 study group in the future and developed into official international standards.

The Focus Group on Application of Distributed Ledger Technology (FG DLT) was established in May 2017 at the suggestion of Korea, and has held a total of seven meetings up to this meeting. With this meeting as the final one, the results were submitted to the TSAG (Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group) and activities concluded.

The first deliverable, the document 'Definitions of Terms for Distributed Ledger Technology (FG DLT D1.1),' defines various terms to be used in the field of distributed ledger technology. As terms defined under Korea's leadership are adopted as common terms during the future ITU-T international standardization process, Korea's standardization standing in the field is expected to expand further.

The second deliverable, the document 'Distributed Ledger Technology Overview, Concepts, and Ecosystem (FG DLT D1.2)', defines the technical characteristics, types, and various ecosystems required for the implementation of distributed ledger technology. It is expected that this will serve as a useful resource for the technological development of related domestic industries in the future.

The ecosystem identifies various key stakeholders in distributed ledger technology from hardware, business, software, and protocol development perspectives, and defines their roles.

Thirdly, the document 'Distributed Ledger Technology Standard Landscape (FG DLT D1.3)' is expected to help identify international standardization items requiring further development and build a roadmap for future international standardization by providing the current status of international standardization of distributed ledger technology being carried out by major international standardization organizations such as ISO and ITU-T.

Lee Kyung-hee, Team Leader of the International Cooperation Team at the National Radio Research Institute, said, “The results of this meeting are the fruit of Korea’s active participation in the field of distributed ledger technology from the preliminary research stage of standardization,” adding, “Based on these results, we will spare no support to lead the international standardization of distributed ledger technology that will proceed in earnest in the future.”