16/04/20

ASIA: China is set to launch its national blockchain platform next week.

As published on theblockcrypto.com, Wednesday 15 April, 2020.

China’s national blockchain platform, the Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN), is set to launch on April 25.

The initiative, led by the Chinese government agency, The State Information Center, aims to help companies deploy blockchain applications faster and cheaper.

“High-cost deployment, operation and maintenance structure is the main current bottleneck toward blockchain development [...] thus, there is an urgent need within the industry to create a public infrastructure network,” said the BSN Development Association in its latest whitepaper.

Currently, it costs about RMB 100,000 ($14,000) to build a traditional three-peer consortium blockchain local area network-style environment, said the association, adding that the BSN would sharply reduce that cost to just about RMB 2,000 to 3,000 ($280-$425) a year to form a chain and become operational.

“This will encourage a vast number of small-, medium- and micro-sized enterprises, and individuals such as students, to use the BSN to invent and innovate, thereby accelerating the rapid development and widespread use of blockchain technology,” said the association.

The BSN can be viewed as “the internet of blockchains," it added.

The BSN network was initially revealed in October 2019 by the association, whose founding members includes The State Information Center, as well as five companies from three key industries - telecom, financial, and tech.

These are China Mobile Communications Corporation Design Institute and China Mobile Communications Corporation Government and Enterprise Service Company (telecom), China UnionPay Corporation and China Mobile Financial Technology (financial), and Beijing Red Date Technology (tech/ software).

The association said the BSN has already created almost 100 public city nodes in China with support from three telecom carriers - China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom.

Looking ahead, it is planning to take that number to around 200, as the association is currently in talks with global carriers, cloud services providers and other companies within the blockchain industry.

China appears to have accelerated its blockchain and digital currency initiatives amid the coronavirus pandemic. Just earlier this week, the country's gov­ern­ment announced 71 members of its national blockchain commit­tee that would work on setting industrial stan­dards.

Yesterday, Chinese state-owned bank, the Agricultural Bank of China, appeared to have released a mobile test app that supports the national digital currency project.