Izertis, key in the design of ISBE, the blockchain infrastructure driving Spain's digital sovereignty

Izertis, key in the design of ISBE, the blockchain infrastructure driving Spain's digital sovereignty

Digital transformation is advancing at a rapid pace and poses a common challenge: How to ensure trust, security and interoperability in digital services? In this context, Spain has decided to respond with a pioneering approach: ISBE, the Blockchain Services Infrastructure of Spain, a project that marks a before and after in the way in which citizens, companies and administrations will be able to interact in the digital world.

Promoted by the Community of Madrid and Alastria within the RETECH programme and financed with European Next Generation EU funds, ISBE is not just another blockchain network, ISBE is a public-private infrastructure of state scope that offers a secure, reliable and prepared environment to comply with European regulations, positioning our country at the forefront of technology. Furthermore, ISBE is aligned with the Digital Spain 2026 Agenda and with the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI).

ISBE: what makes it different?

The uniqueness of ISBE lies in the fact that it is designed from the outset to comply with current and future regulations, something that until now was a challenge for many organisations that needed the benefits and features of Blockchain technology to solve real business problems.

With ISBE, companies and Public Administrations now benefit from:

• Compliance by design: ISBE integrates the requirements of the GDPR, eIDAS2, MiCA or DORA from the ground up. This means that applications developed on the network will be able to operate with legal and security guarantees.
• A flexible, multi-purpose network model: combining different types of networks; some more stringent in regulatory terms, responding to use cases that require strict compliance with regulations, such as GDPR, and others more flexible and with fewer limitations if the use case, and the regulations allow it.
• Decentralised and transparent governance: its functioning is shared among multiple public and private actors, avoiding concentrations of power and increasing trust in the system.
• Sustainability and efficiency: it is a coal-neutral infrastructure, aligned with the European Green Pact, thanks to a low-consumption consensus mechanism and responsible management of the carbon footprint.
• Open source and accessibility: ISBE publishes its nodes, APIs and smart contracts under open licences, allowing any actor to audit, improve and leverage the infrastructure without barriers to entry.

Compared to other blockchain networks - public or consortial - ISBE is distinguished by its commitment to legal and technical trust at national level, making it the first initiative of its kind in Europe.

Benefits for companies and administrations

What is interesting about ISBE is not only its design, but what it enables in practice:

For businesse

• Faster development thanks to a ready-to-use infrastructure.
• Cost reduction with tools and APIs available from the start.
• Possibility to scale up to Europe thanks to interoperability with EBSI.
• Increased confidence of customers and partners by operating in a regulated and easily auditable environment.

For public administrations:

• Streamlined and transparent processes, with less bureaucracy.
• New citizen services, such as e-certificates or automated help.
• Strengthening citizen confidence by offering verifiable and legally valid procedures.

A simple example: a municipality could validate in seconds whether a citizen is entitled to social assistance, without paperwork or delays, and always in compliance with data protection regulations. Such solutions, which today take weeks or months, would be immediate with ISBE.

In short, ISBE is not only technology: it is a lever for change to accelerate the digitalisation of services, increase competitiveness and strengthen Spain's technological sovereignty.

Izertis' participation in ISBE

In a project of this scale and complexity, it is essential to have technology partners with proven experience in blockchain and complex systems integration. This is

where Izertis plays a key role. Our company actively participates in several areas of ISBE design and deployment, contributing knowledge and technical capacity.

Specifically:

• Definition of requirements: Izertis is responsible for assessing and defining the requirements to be met by the network. This phase is essential because it determines what capabilities, guarantees and functionalities ISBE will offer in the future.
• Development of technical components: we participate in the creation of different modules and artefacts that form the heart of the infrastructure. From architecture design to service integration, our team brings its expertise to make ISBE a robust, scalable and efficient network.
• Leadership in Digital Identity: Izertis coordinates the Digital Identity Group, a strategic area within ISBE. Digital identity is one of the pillars on which many future services will be built, from e-government to e-banking. Thanks to our experience in European projects such as EBSI-Vector, we bring a strong vision on how to ensure secure, verifiable and eIDAS2-aligned identities.

This role not only reinforces Izertis' position as a benchmark in blockchain in Spain, but also places us at the heart of a project that will set the course of European digitisation.

A future full of opportunities

Spain's Blockchain Services Infrastructure is set to become the meeting point between the public and private sectors for the development of trusted digital solutions. Use cases such as the issuing of verifiable academic credentials, product traceability, the automation of financial processes or the management of social benefits are already emerging as immediate scenarios.

Izertis will continue to actively contribute to this journey, helping companies and administrations to identify, design and deploy solutions that make the most of ISBE's potential by transforming innovation into real value.

Conclusion

ISBE is much more than a blockchain network: it is a strategic project for Spain and Europe, combining technological innovation, regulatory compliance and public-private collaboration. With the participation of Izertis in its definition and deployment, we are convinced that this infrastructure will become the basis for a new generation of more efficient, secure and reliable digital services.

And this is only the beginning. In future articles we will explore in detail the real use cases in which Izertis is already working on ISBE and the business opportunities that this infrastructure offers to different sectors.

Lead author: Joaquín Precioso Sánchez.

Other authors: Alberto Rodríguez Ludeiro and Iraia Olabarrieta