The state of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology in China is especially relevant to the industry, given the country’s active regulatory process, which has heavily influenced the market in the past.
Recently, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, commonly known as MIIT, has published a white paper regarding the blockchain technology market in mainland China. Despite the country’s crackdown on digital currencies, it seems like by the end of March 2018, there were 456 active blockchain-based companies. In fact, according to Yu Jianing, the chief of the MIIT Information Centre Industrial Economy Research Institute, 2017 has been the best year for the industry so far, granted the appearance of 178 blockchain-related companies, whereas the technology begun achieving maturity.
The white paper went on to talk about blockchain is becoming increasingly relevant in a wide variety of industries, including but not limited to security services, investing, financing, human resources, media, platforms, hardware manufacturing and more.
The white paper also covers investments, and mentioned that over 100 equity investment deals have been finalized during 2017, whereas the number for 2018 has already surpassed 68 during the year’s first economic quarter. The author believes that blockchain technology is still in its infancy, yet projects are quickly reaching maturity, whereas blockchain concepts are rapidly popularized.
While the numbers are not huge given China’s massive population, they do show an increasing interest in the technology for the population. This is understandable, thanks to the wide variety of benefits offered by blockchain, including: decentralization, immutability, transparency, trust, security, availability, scalability, efficiency, speed and more.
The white paper also talked about intellectual property, and mentioned that: "But blockchain is an underlying technology that has a wide range of application scenarios. It is both difficult and expensive to require patent applicants to list all potential and specific use cases in order to gain intellectual property protections (…) If we want to protect blockchain technology IPs, then we have to make certain adjustments to how the patent law is being practiced."
Last but not least, the author also described the importance of keeping the ban on Initial Coin Offerings, and the reasons behind it. However, the paper mentions that laws will have to keep changing to adopt the benefits of the technology, while limiting risks.
Based on everything that has been outlined so far, what are your thoughts on China’s current position regarding blockchain technology? Let us know in the comment section below.