Where the United Nations blockchain work meets practice: UN Blockchain Talks 2026

Blockchain work across the UN system has grown steadily, but not always in a coordinated manner. Some teams are piloting real solutions; others are still assessing whether the technology fits their operational reality. This creates momentum, but also fragmentation; lessons sit in separate corners, and colleagues often struggle to find the right use case, the right focal point, or the right evidence at the right time.

Between existing blockchain projects and use cases across the United Nations, the UN Blockchain Talks add the missing layer: a regular space to compare approaches and learn from cases that have faced real operating constraints. The series continues in 2026 with a monthly rhythm as topic-specific sessions designed to stay practical and collaborative. 

Timeline and topics of upcoming UN Blockchain Talks:

• 12 March 2026 | Digital Identity
  National-Scale Digital Identity on Public Blockchains → Watch the recording
• 26 March 2026 | Digital Payments and Financial Inclusion
  From Humanitarian and Development Cash to Everyday Wallets: Stablecoins and Digital Rails for the Last Mile
• 9 April 2026 | Supply Chain
  Traceability for Commodities and Waste: Cardano, IOTA, Algorand in Real Supply Chains
• 23 April 2026 | Blockchain for Climate
  Scaling Carbon Markets and Climate MRV on L2s and L1s
• 14 May 2026 | AI on Blockchain
  AI Agents, Federated Learning, and On-Chain Alignment

Each talk is followed by shared materials and a lightweight prompt for participants to share interests and propose ideas to move beyond the talks into peer support, working groups and practical collaboration.

The UN Blockchain Community of Practice

Blockchain projects across UN agencies and regions tend to face the same early hurdles, such as finding the right partners, navigating governance and risk issues, or demonstrating that the approach improves delivery in real operating conditions. And when teams work in isolation, lessons travel slowly, and the same design mistakes repeat.

That’s why the UN Blockchain Community of Practice (CoP), hosted under the UN Innovation Network (UNIN) and managed by UNDP’s Alternative Finance Lab (AltFinLab), brings this work into one shared space with a focus on practical knowledge sharing – a regular learning series, a live repository of initiatives, and pathways that keep the work moving beyond the Talks.

COs, UN Agencies working in isolation/silos, the CoP creates a shared space where colleagues can find real examples, learn from what has already been tested, and connect with the right people. Through the Core Group, the live repository, and the Blockchain Talks and other activities, the CoP reduces duplication, helps avoid common mistakes, and improves the quality of new initiatives.  

Journey and momentum

Since early 2025, the CoP has relaunched its learning cadence through the Blockchain Talks series, with the first set of sessions focusing on building a shared foundation while staying grounded in real implementation. Each talk was designed to be useful for both newcomers and practitioners, and featured expert speakers from across the UN system and external technical partners.

Those early sessions helped reset the community around a practical baseline: what kinds of problems blockchain has been used for inside the UN ecosystem, what enabling conditions matter (policy, partners, user adoption, and operational constraints), and what colleagues should ask before they commit time and resources to a pilot.

A living repository of UN blockchain initiatives

Aiming to build a reliable knowledge base of what has been tried, where, by whom, and for what purpose, a major workstream behind the CoP was building a live repository of UN blockchain initiatives that can serve as a working reference point. As part of this wider effort, 150+ blockchain-related initiatives were mapped across the UN ecosystem. 

In parallel, 80+ cases were validated directly with project focal points (to correct details, add context, and confirm status), building toward a repository that is usable as a working tool for programme teams, innovation units, procurement colleagues, and policy teams alike.

What becomes easier

• Colleagues can quickly find relevant use cases instead of starting from scratch.
• Teams can identify who to contact and what supporting materials exist.
• Early design can improve when teams can see what others learned about governance, risk, and delivery constraints.
• Templates, partner models, and implementation patterns can travel across agencies more easily.

The repository also helps the community see patterns. Over time, it becomes a live tool that makes it easier to spot clusters of work in areas where the UN is already active, such as payments and financial inclusion, supply chain traceability, digital identity, climate-related applications, and new governance or fundraising models.

Get involved

What makes this CoP work is the people who show up with real examples and honest questions. If you are attending a Talk, your input is what makes it valuable. Registration links will be shared through the CoP space and mailing list.

For more details or suggestions, contact: Ben Thompson Coon, UN Blockchain CoP Lead

ben.thompsoncoon@undp.org