The Chinese government has published a “whitepaper” (link in Chinese) that sets out key milestones for the development of blockchain technology in the country, in the strongest signal yet that it’s encouraging the growth of the technology there, with strong support of ANT and Ping An.
The move will give further impetus to firms pushing for blockchain applications in sectors ranging from payments to smart contracts on the mainland, which is already a central force for bitcoin mining (paywall). The 70-page report (pdf, link in Chinese) was published Oct. 18 by the software services division of China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and was written by a working group of financial firms and nonprofits including mobile payments giant Ant Financial (an Alibaba affiliate) and Ping An Insurance. Parts of the report retreaded ground that has been covered by everyone from the World Economic Forum to the British government, providing an overview of the technology’s history and potential applications. Use-cases it highlighted included everything from financial services to business management to education.
