ANNAPOLIS, Md. – The Accredited Standards Committee X9 Inc., a non-profit accredited by the American National Standards Institute that is seeking to develop standards for the financial services industry, said it has launched a project to create a “much-needed standardized glossary” of common terms and definitions used with Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT).
The X9A Retail Payments Subcommittee said it is also seeking participants for the initiative, which will kick off in October. The project's deliverables will be made available as an ANSI X9 Technical Report (TR).
“Interest in blockchain is rising, and there are many new blockchain, DLT and smart contract initiatives sprouting up in the U.S. and around the world today,” the organization said. “Unfortunately, these often assign different meanings to the same terms, creating opportunity for misunderstanding and confusion that may impede adoption of this new technology in the financial services industry, as well as hampering interoperability. The current lack of standards leads to misconceptions about the meanings of a variety of new terms that need to be well understood across blockchain platforms, along with conflicts with the long-agreed meanings of terms used in contract law, and it results in ambiguity where clarity is required.”
X9 said the adoption of a standard set of platform-independent terms.
"The idea for this new work item arose in the X9 blockchain study group, which was looking at the value of and need for standards in this area," said Guy Berg of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, leader of the study group. "The need for a common language rose to the top: it's difficult to have clear communication when different parties are using different terms. The new TR will deliver a common vocabulary so that people can more effectively discuss and assess blockchain technology with fewer misunderstandings."
For info, go here https://x9.org/contact-x9/