Beijing City Regulator Calls For Blockchain Standards

An official with Beijing's municipal government is calling for the country to adopt a "standard" approach to blockchain development.

According to a speech published by Sina Finance, Huo Xuewen, secretary of Beijing's Municipal Bureau of Finance (a group that sets the city's economic strategy), invoked the need for "healthy" progress in the blockchain industry during a fintech event last week.

In his speech, Xuewen outlined popular use cases for blockchain (including payments, credit and trading), and called for blockchain standardization as a means to make development easier. This, he says, can solve problems and stymie any potential illegal financial activities.

While Xuewen's remarks focused on the tech more broadly, he did identify risk areas including P2P loans denominated in digital currency and pyramid schemes.

The comments come months after China's central bank, the People's Bank of China, asserted itself more directly in the supervision of the domestic bitcoin exchange space. Those efforts led to a shift in policy at China's "Big Three" bitcoin exchanges, sparking a withdrawal freeze amid regulator-mandated updates to anti-money laundering processes.

And though Xuewen didn't address the PBoC's bitcoin activities, he did highlight its work on a digital currency system, utilizing a distributed ledger. Initial trials, which occurred last year, are said to have involved Chinese financial institutions including WeBank and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.

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