In a 2019 speech, Chinese President Xi Jinping once stated, blockchain is “an important breakthrough for independence of core technologies” and that this country needs “take the opportunities” that this technology offers.
Since then, China has been quietly building a platform to make it easier for companies to deploy their own blockchain technology. The platform is called Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN).
China unlocks blockchain potential
The vast majority of people have only seen the application of blockchain in the crypto space, but for many companies and organizations, this distributed ledger technology has even greater potential when it comes to transparency. and speed for processes that are often expensive and slow, like cross-border money transfers. Another aspect of this technology are smart contracts, which allow for automatic execution when certain conditions are met.
Yifan He, CEO of Red Date Techonology, said: “We think blockchain technology is so powerful that it will change the entire internet and nearly every IT system architecture.” Red Date is one of the founding members of China’s BSN platform.
Besides Red Date, many other entities linked to the Chinese government are also backing the BSN, including the State Information Center (SIC), an arm of China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). Besides, China Mobile, a state-owned carrier, also supports this project.
Paul Triolo, head of policy at Albright StoneBridge, said:All in all, blockchain technology is extremely important to China, as government officials view it as a low-barrier sector to enter the technology playing field and Chinese companies want to promote blockchain applications. to solve many real-world problems.“
What can BSN do?
BSN’s products will be aimed at companies, especially those operating in the field of cloud computing infrastructure. It could be large-scale public clouds like Amazon or Microsoft, or it could be internal or private clouds built by companies themselves.
BSN itself is built as a “one-stop shop” for deploying blockchain applications to the cloud, a process that is inherently time- and money-consuming.
Another attraction of BSN is its ability to solve an industry problem: interoperability – or making it possible for different blockchains to work together. For example, normally if 2 banks have applications built on 2 different blockchain platforms, they may not be able to interact with each other, but if built through BSN infrastructure, they will interact with each other. each other as this company acts as a bridge for those blockchains.
For companies that want to use a variety of blockchain applications, BSN’s product helps them do so through their cloud service provider without the need to install countless servers for each application. use blockchain.
But it’s worth noting that there will be no crypto apps tied to BSN’s platform. That’s because China has completely banned crypto-related activities and considers them illegal. Another difference of BSN is that they only build the foundation but do not have their own blockchain.
Demand for BSN is still low at the moment, but Mr. He is optimistic about the future of blockchain.
The challenge of reaching out to the world
BSN has opened gateways in Turkey and Uzbekistan
BSN’s ambition is not limited to China, but also wants to reach out globally. However, the centralization and connections with the Chinese government make this ambition a major challenge.
However, this challenge did not discourage Mr. He. The international version of the platform will be open source, he said, allowing participants to examine the code to detect backdoors in it, if any.
But BSN’s centralized character is the most fundamental challenge to going international – when it violates the decentralization virtues that the tech community often praises about blockchain.
Besides, another obstacle that could prevent BSN from entering the international market is the lack of support for cryptocurrency applications. He himself, CEO of Red Date, also admitted that “many people won’t be interested” in blockchain that does not offer cryptocurrency applications.
Even so, Mr. Triolo also said, “The importance of BSN is an attempt to show that the Chinese government is working to support the development of the blockchain ecosystem on its own terms, by allowing a regulatory approach in different areas..”
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