China’s Blockchain Ecosystem is Taking Shape According to MIIT

The blockchain ecosystem in China is taking shape, with great increases in the number of enterprises and diversified applications according to China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

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In a White Paper on China’s Blockchain Industry previously published by MIIT, the number of registered blockchain companies with blockchain as their main business have exceeded 450 as of March 2018.

According to a survey by Jingdata, Beijing and Shanghai are the two largest bases for blockchain enterprises, followed by Shenzhen and Hangzhou. The blockchain companies in Beijing mainly focus on virtual currency trading and currency miner productions, while the startups in Shanghai are mostly devoted to the application of blockchain technology, 30 percent of which are in the financial service sector.

Other big cities have also set up blockchain-related investment funds. For instance, the Nanjing government announced an investment of $1.5 billion in blockchain projects in July of this year, attracting startups to settle in Nanjing.

So far, several provinces including Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Guizhou, and Guangdong have issued guides on blockchain technology, and some have even incorporated blockchain development into their regional “Thirteenth Five-Year Plan,” China’s strategic economic plan from 2016 to 2020.

Tech giants including Baidu, JD.com and Alibaba are also using the technology in their own services. Baidu Baike, a large online encyclopedia under Baidu, now uses blockchain as a tool to record editing history, ensuring that every piece of information uploaded by users is traceable.

In the 2017, 49 Chinese companies made it into the top 100 Global Blockchain Patents Ranking. Alibaba topped the list, followed by the Digital Currency Research Institute of People’s Bank of China and RChain Technology, China’s first blockchain technology service provider.

Both public and private sectors have witnessed the prosperous development of blockchain. With strong policy support from governments at the municipal and national levels as well as technological innovations from the companies, the future seems bright for blockchain in China.

Featured image source: coinstaker.