Huawei, Baidu, JD.com, Tencent and Ant Financial joined China’s national committee that aimed at setting the standards in the country.
As the blockchain industry continues penetrating modern technology at a fast pace, China wants to be in the leading pack in seizing the opportunities the technology offers. The country has formed a group of committee members to oversee it. Among those named in the committee includes the telecommunication maker Huawei, the e-commerce giant JD.com, Baidu, Tencent, the founder of WeChat, and also Ant Financial.
The group has been named as the ‘National Blockchain and Distributed Accounting Technology Standardization Technical Committee.’ However, China’s Ministry of Industry and IT did not highlight their specific role of the group after releasing the members of the group.
Nevertheless, one can guess their role just by reading and understanding the name given to the group of the committee. The country seems to be embracing the blockchain technology despite being cited to be against cryptocurrencies which run on the same technology.
It seems the government feels threatened by how free the crypto space is, ungoverned, but it seems to embrace the technology in other industrial sectors.
Blockchain is a technology that many confuse with the crypto asset Bitcoin, only because Bitcoin was the first to run on the technology 11 years ago. Blockchain can be used to streamline a lot of services to avoid the traditional way of doing things, which are marred by time consuming and inefficiency.
China and Blockchain Technology
Recently, the port in Guangzhou, that Tesla uses to import and export goods, ran a pilot program to test the feasibility of blockchain technology in clearing goods. The technology was used through an app where all parties involved confirmed the goods by mare clicking, where it offers incorruptible service.
The test was successful and the fintech company piloting the program is intending to roll out the technology in other Asian ports.
It will be interesting to note if the committee will be able to convince the government to lift the ban on the cryptocurrencies, where millions of Chinese use expensive ways to acquire the crypto assets.
Chinese have been at the forefront in the blockchain industry, whereby one of the world’s largest crypto exchange Binance is founded by Changpeng Zhao, Chinese-Canadian. Recently, the company expanded its business when it acquired the site CoinMarketCap for a whopping $400 million deal.
With the blockchain industry still mature, there are a lot of opportunities that industries can harness to offer cheap and reliable services. As other countries struggle to maintain the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, it seems China might be over it and strategizing how to outpace the United States as the largest financial hub.
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