In the era of digital economy, blockchain is becoming an important digital infrastructure to promote the quality and efficiency improvement of the real economy and the innovative development of the digital economy through the integration and application of related information technologies, and generate is full of vitality in the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation. At present, what is the development of blockchain in China? In the future, what kind of opportunities will China’s blockchain development have? What are the challenges?
On December 7, 2023, the award ceremony of the Web 3.0 Innovation Competition was held in Liangjiang Collaborative Innovation Zone near Mingyue Lake in Liangjiang New District, Chongqing. During the event, China Information and Communication Research Institute released the "Blockchain White Paper (2023)" (hereinafter referred to as the "White Paper"), which interpreted the hot topics of blockchain concerned by the industry.
▲ On December 7, 2023, Mingyue Lake, a collaborative innovation zone between the two rivers, was released, and the White Paper on Blockchain (2023) was released. Reporter Zhang Jinhui photo/visual Chongqing
According to the White Paper, on the whole, China’s blockchain technical strength has been significantly improved, application and innovation have blossomed, and regional and industry infrastructure has taken shape. But at the same time, it also faces difficulties and challenges, such as the weak ability of technological independent innovation, the unformed incentive mechanism of alliance, and the lack of overall planning of infrastructure construction. Looking forward to the future, Web3.0 and data elements are expected to become an important breakthrough in the application and innovation of blockchain technology.
The industrial development trend is good.
In the past year, major countries and regions around the world are accelerating the strategic layout of the next generation Internet (Web3.0) based on blockchain, continuously exploring new scenes and new formats, and driving blockchain technology, applications and industries to usher in new development opportunities. The industrial pattern of blockchain tends to be stable, the number of new enterprises and the degree of capital activity slow down, and the standardized layout is becoming more and more perfect; The scale of blockchain infrastructure construction has begun to appear, and the technical application system of the new generation Internet oriented to Web3.0 has gradually formed, which has become an important engine for the ecological development of blockchain.
From the perspective of specific countries, the performance of China and the United States is particularly eye-catching.
"In recent years, China has launched the deployment of blockchain industry in an all-round way, and the understanding of blockchain in all sectors of society has deepened. Local governments have strengthened policy guidance for Web3.0 and Metauniverse, and enterprises have given full play to their main role, exploring application landing and model innovation. Industry organizations and related institutions have actively promoted the improvement of blockchain standard system, and the industry as a whole has shown a good development trend." The White Paper believes that.
There are three specific manifestations: China’s blockchain industry pattern is stable and the standard system is continuously improved; City-level infrastructure will be accelerated to serve regional ecological co-construction; Many governments have actively deployed Web3.0, and the pace of products going out to sea has accelerated.
For example, in terms of industrial structure, the number of blockchain enterprises in China remains relatively stable, and related enterprises are mainly concentrated in Beijing, Guangdong, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and other provinces and cities with rapid digital development. At present, these places have formed a certain scale of industrial ecology.
Judging from the filing situation, as of October 2023, the National Internet Information Office has released 13 batches of blockchain information service filing lists. It can be seen that the boundaries of technology-enabled digital economy are constantly expanding, and various industrial applications such as government data sharing, people’s livelihood services, digital finance, medical health, and digital cultural creation have emerged one after another.
In addition, China’s blockchain industry cooperation level continues to improve. According to the "White Paper", in recent years, large central state-owned enterprises and information technology enterprises have comprehensively laid out the development of blockchain technology industry and are committed to building a full industrial chain and full-stack service capability. With the continuous expansion of the application breadth of blockchain industry, the integration of blockchain technology and business continues to deepen, which puts forward higher requirements for the application ability of the industry, and the industry gradually turns into a new situation of division of labor and cooperation.
The effect of large-scale application of urban blockchain infrastructure has begun to show.
In terms of standard system, in recent years, domestic blockchain technology application standards have been actively developed, and various standardization organizations have worked together to promote standardization, and blockchain standards have achieved fruitful results. According to statistics compiled by China Xintong Institute, as of November 2023, relevant domestic standardization organizations have issued 209 technical standards in the blockchain field, including 3 national standards, 8 industry standards, 167 group standards and 31 local standards.
In terms of city-level infrastructure, in recent years, the provincial and municipal governments in many places have accelerated the exploration of urban blockchain infrastructure construction for the common needs of public services such as data sharing and resource management, uniformly carried related applications, improved the management efficiency of blockchain technology platforms and applications, and promoted the orderly flow and efficient sharing of data elements across institutions, platforms and industries in the region.
According to incomplete statistics, up to now, more than 10 cities nationwide have completed the construction of blockchain infrastructure and put it into use. For example, the "Shuxin Chain" led by Sichuan Province, the "Mountain City Chain" led by Chongqing, and the "Zhijiang Chain" led by Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province have all achieved systematic and large-scale construction to a certain extent, and the supporting role of new infrastructure has gradually emerged.
With the initial effect of the large-scale application of urban blockchain infrastructure, the industrial ecology is also accelerating. According to the "White Paper", according to incomplete statistics, the total number of consensus nodes in most domestic urban blockchain infrastructures has reached more than 20 when multiple underlying chains are deployed, and the complexity of management and operation has been significantly improved. At the same time, domestic government services, public services, medical health, cultural tourism and other business scenarios for natural users have achieved good results, and some areas have formed a scale of 100,000 or even millions of users on the chain.
In addition, some areas such as Yuzhong in Chongqing and Hangzhou in Zhejiang also rely on the urban blockchain infrastructure to deepen the all-round cooperation and linkage of "politics and Industry-University-Research", actively build an innovation platform for blockchain technology application, and cultivate blockchain start-ups.
Still face three major challenges.
Despite this, China’s blockchain development still faces many challenges.
In this regard, the White Paper poses three challenges.
First, there are shortcomings in the independent research and development capability of blockchain technology, which makes it difficult to support deep innovation in application. According to the White Paper, China’s independent innovation capability in consensus algorithm and data storage needs to be further strengthened to solve the new problems raised in the application innovation process of digital assets and digital identities in the future, and the supporting technologies in identity security, authorization management and biometrics need to be improved.
At the same time, there are still some difficulties in China, such as weak discourse power in open source communities, few core patents, and a big gap between infrastructure and overseas, which makes it difficult to support the large-scale growth and autonomous application of digital asset transactions in the future.
Second, the alliance chain lacks an effective governance mechanism and the industrial scale growth is limited. According to the White Paper, there is a big gap between the application scale of alliance chain and public chain. According to IDC’s forecast, the blockchain market in China is expected to exceed $2.5 billion in 2024. However, in 2022, the foreign market scale of DeFi field is close to 50 billion US dollars, and the gap between domestic and foreign markets is obvious.
In addition, in the application process of domestic blockchain, technology is emphasized, governance rules of the alliance are not perfect, and there is no effective incentive mechanism. Compared with the public chain, there are shortcomings and disadvantages in credibility and recognition. This limits the sustainable growth of industrial scale to some extent.
Third, the lack of overall planning of blockchain infrastructure construction affects large-scale application. "The blockchain infrastructure in various industries and regions in China has been developed and built from a regional and industry perspective, focusing on serving regional and industry application needs, and the blockchain infrastructure at a higher level has not yet appeared." The "White Paper" said that at present, the technical standards of various city-level and industry-level blockchain infrastructures are not uniform, the nodes are not interconnected, and the data is difficult to interoperate. Serving specific regions and specific industries can still meet the demand.
However, from the national level, this has restricted the large-scale application across regions, industries and subjects, and will have a certain impact on the long-term healthy development of China’s blockchain technology application and industry.
The future will promote the formation of a credible value interaction network.
"Under the background of building a digital economy with data as the key element, China’s blockchain technology application and industrial development have made positive progress, and technology research and development, application innovation and industrial development have continued to break through. Its key role in serving multi-party businesses and establishing a trusted value network has been further recognized by the industry." The White Paper believes that in the future, blockchain will promote the formation of a credible value interaction network, help realize digital collaboration and socialized production, and usher in a series of opportunities and innovations.
In the short term, as one of the key industries of digital economy in China’s "14 th Five-Year Plan", the support attitude of the national level for industrial development will not change, and the good trend of deep integration of blockchain technology with various fields of economy and society will not change.
In the medium term, with the introduction of a series of policies and measures such as "Twenty Data Articles" and the rapid advancement of data infrastructure construction, blockchain technology can strongly support the separation of data rights and promote the reliable, credible and safe circulation of data elements, which is expected to play an important role in data confirmation, transaction and circulation.
In the long run, emerging industries such as Web3.0 and Metauniverse are developing rapidly. As its key underlying supporting technology, blockchain is expected to provide innovative carriers for new concepts such as Web3.0 and Metauniverse with continuous expansion of network scale, continuous enhancement of technology penetration and steady improvement of application maturity, and explore the formation of new modes and formats that can be experienced and perceived.
"Looking forward to the future, whether it is the realization of user rights in Web3.0 or the new way of digital production and life based on data elements, it is inseparable from the trust foundation built by blockchain in digital space." The White Paper suggests that we should correctly understand the challenges, seize the opportunities and follow the trend, further play the role of blockchain in promoting data sharing, optimizing business processes, reducing operating costs, improving collaborative efficiency, and building a credible system, "linking" subjects from different fields, regions and backgrounds, promoting the formation of ubiquitous and credible value interaction networks, realizing a wider range of digital collaboration and social production, and helping network powers and countries.
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