China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced Monday its plans to set up a national committee for the standardization of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies.
The move comes against the backdrop of an increasingly standardized industry. International standardization entities, including the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) have pioneered this initiative. China is a participant in drafting the standards compiled by the blockchain arm of ISO, according to the announcement.
China has witnessed an impressive growth for the sector with a 30-fold increase in the total cryptocurrency market capitalization during the year. The enthusiasm of Chinese tech giants is evident in the increasing number of firms involved in the sector. Baidu, Xiaomi and NetEase all launched their crypto pet project. E-commerce giant JD launched AI Catapult Accelerator to focus on blockchain startups.
But there is always a tricky side of the boom—regulations. Chinese policymakers are eager to fuel wider adoption of blockchain technologies by setting up framework and standards.
But on the other hand, they are taking a very cautious and gradual approach to the goal to protect and educate investors amid the under-unregulated cryptocurrency ecosystem. Despite the rumors for a centralized digital currency, China’s central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan said that the country, which still does not recognize Bitcoin as a legitimate payment method, is not in a hurry to issue its own digital currency.