China to Create Blockchain Standards for Citizens

The blockchain technology is one that comes with much fewer restrictions and even lesser transaction fees compared to the traditional banking system. The decentralized nature of the blockchain technology makes it impossible for any one person to be in charge and control the system, which invariably means there are no central systems to oversee the system and keep implementing different restrictive policies and exorbitant transaction fees. The owners of cryptocurrencies are in total control of their coins and transactions that take place on the blockchain network.

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The Chinese government has over the years shown their displeasure at the use of the blockchain technology with cryptocurrencies in their country, and as such has been rigid and kept on clamping down on cryptocurrency exchanges in the country, and also arresting people who did businesses with cryptocurrencies.

However, despite their past actions against cryptocurrencies and the underlying blockchain technology, the government has decided to make moves at creating a standardization committee for the national use of blockchain. They aim to create and have a framework that is comprehensive according to standards set by the blockchain technology. According to Li Ying who is the head of the Information and Software Department of the Information Technology ministry, she is of the opinion that the structure of the blockchain standards committee will be created based on the underlying structure of the TC 307, which is another type of blockchain commission included in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). All of this is coming after China’s Information Technology ministry made it known to the public about their plan to standardize the blockchain technology, and the development of blockchain-based application development and the goal is to quickly introduce the blockchain technology to areas that need it urgently because of its features and the solutions it carries.

For a while, China has been a participant of the commission run by the ISO’s TC 307, which is aimed at paying attention to the various standard frameworks used in the blockchain network for smart contracts and authentication. Back in March 2018, the ministry made it known that it had intentions of creating China’s own system based on the standardization. To this end, the IT ministry has a research lab it oversees that has made moves to carry out periodical evaluations of the public blockchains, and this is in a bid to come up with a rating system that is standard.

By standardizing the use of the blockchain technology, and with China being an industrial superpower, more industries will readily adopt the blockchain technology, as that fear of the uncertainty of the stability of the blockchain technology is a major hindrance for big companies that want to partner but are skeptical. The Chinese government has seen and knows just how productive the use of the blockchain technology can be, and will make moves to harness the technology for various purposes. This move by the Chinese government is worthy of accolades, however, it is important to note that standardization of the blockchain system may bring about many restrictions that were not there in the first place.