In 2012, two monumental developments took place in the world of technology. Mark Zuckerburg announced in a status update that Facebook had reached over 1 billion active monthly users. Meanwhile, the European Commission proposed an unprecedented reform of the EU’s data protection rules, which is now known as GDPR.

These developments indicated something very significant — every major corporation, institution and enterprise in the world was shifting business, operations and profit models towards data-sharing in some respect, and this required some form of regulatory framework to support such a shift. The astronomical growth of Facebook and other tech firms mandated important, rapid action from global legislators in a new economy where data became one of the world’s most valuable resources.

If we turn our focus to the flourishing blockchain sphere, up until last year the technology was in early growth. Regulators have not paid much significant attention, given that the adoption of blockchain had largely been limited to technocrats, small pools of early adopters and unfortunately, criminals. Enthusiasm then spread to speculative retail traders, with some institutions and enterprises following suit.

However, in the past year the tide has turned, with a groundswell of momentum powering a wave of institutional investor involvement.

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