The People’s Republic of China is setting up national standards for the blockchain technology, according to reports. Related government departments will establish a national blockchain and distributed Accounting Technology Standardization Committee by the end of 2019.
China to Establish National Blockchain and Blockchain Standards
China’s approach to cryptocurrencies has led many trading platforms and digital currency miners to leave the country in search for crypto-friendly environments. But while banning initial coin offerings and the use of digital assets as means of payment or investment, the country is betting on the development of the underlying blockchain technology.
According to an exclusive report by Chinese agency The Economic Information Daily, China is establishing a national standard for blockchain in order to promote the building of a standard system from top-level design. The standards include requirements for inter-operability, safety, and reliability, according to Li Ming, director of the Blockchain Research Office of the Electronic Industry Standards Research Institute of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
National standards will range from basic standards, business and application standards, process and method standards, credible and inter-operable standards, and information security standards. The plan has already been published and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will set up a committee to handle its development.
The standard of information security is of key importance to the Chinese authorities. The formulation of the blockchain standard, however, will not necessarily trigger a rush of blockchain development within Chinese industries, but it will only provide some guidance, according to Li Ming.
China’s investment in decentralized ledger technology has allowed it to register more than 200 patents in the international blockchain. Out of the top 100 companies with the highest number of patents published for blockchain technology, 49 were Chinese and 23 from the United States, according to the Global Blockchain Enterprise Patent Rankings 2017, published by IPRdaily.
At the 2018 Blockchain Security Summit, Yu Kequn, director of the National Center for Information Technology Security Research, explained the importance of the technology on the international setting as the leader of a new round of technological innovation and new industry development.
“The development of blockchain technology may become an important step for China to grasp the global technological competition (…) It can be applied in the production chain, management chain, and transaction chain, and it will bring the entire life cycle of restructuring to different areas, so that the life cycle can be managed and traceable.”
The country has invested several billion dollars to develop decentralized ledger technology, but it is unknown how soon it will pay off or whether it will ease its stance on crypto trading.
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