Chinese Gov’t Sets Up a Committee for Blockchain and DLT Standards

Published at: April 14, 2020

The Chinese government and its federal authorities are getting increasingly involved in the blockchain space to push forward innovation throughout the country. 

In the latest, the government released an official notice stating that they have put together a technical committee of 15 organizations to devise national standards for blockchain and distributed ledger technology.

This comes only three days after the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) called for feedback on the data security standards of blockchain and other technologies. 

An all-inclusive committee

To ensure that the national standards thus set by the committee are in compliance with the existing laws and also promote the development of the industry, the government has included people from 15 organizations from political, financial, industrial, academic and research backgrounds. 

This includes the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) Digital Currency Research Institue, MIIT, Tencent, Zhe­jiang Uni­ver­sity and Baidu.

The committee currently lists 71 people from those organizations, who will be chaired by MIIT vice-min­is­ter Chen Zhaox­iong. The PBOC Digital Currency Research Institute’s vice head Di Gang will act as one of the five vice chairs to the committee.

China is progressing in blockchain and digital currency

China has been leading the blockchain and cryptocurrency space in terms of innovation. While the United States leads the way in terms of total investments in blockchain, China has so far shown better progress in terms of technical implementation and regulatory reforms to support research and development in this sector.

Earlier in March, China completed the development of the basic functions of its central bank digital currency and the government was on to drafting laws to start circulating the digital yuan.

Tags
Related Posts
How the digital yuan stablecoin impacts crypto in China: Experts answer
This is Part One of a multipart series on blockchain and crypto in China. Read Part Two about the role of emerging technologies in the future of finance in China and globally here. China has been discussing the possibilities of national digital currency for half a decade, and the Chinese digital yuan project — referred to as the Digital Currency Electronic Payment, or DCEP — has years of history. Back in 2014, the People’s Bank of China set up a research group “to study digital currencies and application scenarios.” The research team was conducting a digital currency study and reportedly …
Adoption / April 10, 2021
Crypto at the Olympics: NFT skis, Bitcoin bobsledders and CBDC controversy
The 2022 Winter Olympics, officially called the XXIV Olympic Winter Games, kicked off on Feb. 4 in Beijing with crypto being a major part of the event, partly because of the Chinese government’s digital currency ambitions. The cryptocurrency community hasn’t had strong ties to the Olympics over the last few years. The last major headline-grabbing interaction was when the Dogecoin (DOGE) community helped fund the Jamaican bobsled team in 2014 so they could attend the event in Sochi. The 2022 Winter Olympics, however, are making history due to the presence of nonfungible tokens (NFTs), Bitcoin- (BTC)-supported athletes, the launch of …
Decentralization / Feb. 15, 2022
China and US Must Learn From One Another and Collaborate on CBDC
Today, the relationship between China and the United States is one of escalating competition. On Oct. 23, 2019, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before the U.S. House Financial Services Committee on Libra. Zuckerberg and members of Congress had much to disagree on. One consensus that did emerge, however, was concern regarding China’s digital currency project. Zuckerberg noted: “While we debate these issues, the rest of the world isn’t waiting. China is moving quickly to launch similar ideas in the coming months.” Building on this, the U.S. Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Policy recently discussed the need …
Blockchain / July 28, 2020
Chinese Central Bank-Led Fintech Research Institute Seeks New Blockchain Talent
A fintech research institute established by China's central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), has posted several new job openings for blockchain talent. The three listings were published to Chinese recruitment website Lagou.com on May 21. As its profile on Lagou.com outlines, the Shenzhen Fintech Research Institute is a unit jointly organized by the PBoC’s Digital Currency Research Institute, the Shenzhen Local Financial Supervision Bureau and the Futian District People's Government. It is tasked with spearheading fintech and digital currency-related development projects under the aegis of the central bank and the Shenzhen municipal government. The new listings for blockchain …
Adoption / May 21, 2019
PBoC governor says digital yuan to be more privacy-enhanced than payment apps
During a virtual video session at the Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies' 30th Anniversary Conference, People's Bank of China governor Gang Yi discussed recent developments regarding the country's central bank digital currency, or CBDC, known as the digital yuan (e-CNY). Gang specifically addressed the issue of privacy surrounding the Digital Yuan in the following statement, as translated by Cointelegraph: We are taking a high degree of focus on issues surrounding the security of personal information and the digital yuan and have made relevant regulatory and technological adjustments to meet this objective. We have adopted a principle of anonymity …
Adoption / Nov. 9, 2021