Jiangsu’s capital Nanjing has expressed a commitment to invest in public block-chain projects and the token economy as a whole. The capital of Chinese province Nanjing worked to put together a 1.5 billion dollars which translates to 10 billion Yuan in a block-chain investment kitty. Nanjing city will be teaming up with the Zhongguancun block-chain industry alliance who are based in Beijing to unveil the 1.5 billion block-chain fund. The alliance was formed by Chinese government research institutes and block-chain institutions in-order to look into matters block-chain and seize opportunities when they arise. This government-sanctioned alliance revealed their plan to invest in the block-chain at the first ever industrial public chain summit (IPCS). A notable figure among the high profile government officials in attendance was Luo Qun, the deputy secretary of the communist party of China.
This move comes as a bit of a surprise given the complicated relationship China has had with crypto and block-chain technology over the last several months. Less than twelve months ago, China slapped a blanket ban on all ICOs causing market panic and a dip in crypto asset prices; they also recently made known their plans to target foreign ICOs as well. In light of all this, what does the move made by Chinese city Nanjing in conjunction with the Zhongguancun block-chain industry alliance mean? Is China finally warming up to cryptocurrencies? Recent developments seem to support this notion, with the country ranking several existing crypto-currencies which has seen an increase in registration of block-chain companies by about 454%. Surprisingly, Bitcoin was nowhere to be seen among China’s top 10 listed cryptocurrencies.
Another sign of a major Chinese rethink on crypto is the fact that a Chinese official is working to bring alive a local token economy as well as public block-chain projects. This is clearly an approach that is vastly different compared to the crypto averse approach China had taken several months ago. The coming together of the block-chain alliance and Nanjing city will see two projects hand-picked for the block-chain fund. The two will be; the UDAP Foundation and the TokenX community. These two projects will be the first recipients of the fund which will see more other projects benefit from the fund as well in the future. Project UDAP aims to create a decentralized platform where users can tokenize their assets while Token X’s ambition is yet to be disclosed at this time.
The city of Nanjing has big plans which not only have to do with funding blockchain projects but also to do with ensuring these companies relocate to their province. At the IPCS summit, the chairman of the Zhongguancun block-chain industry alliance, Yuandao, shared the opinion that as more industries adopt block-chain technology and more chains are developed, it will lead to more technological breakthroughs. Wang Xiaohui, the deputy chairman of Tsinghua University’s internet industry research center, seconded Yuandao and added that global cooperation and autonomy when it comes to adopting block-chain adoption in industries will be the pillars of a great token economy.
