China's appetite for Blockchain technology

is getting bigger and the world needs to be ready for the breakthrough that the country may come up with, says Virgilio Lizardo Jr., vice president at Bitbank Group. Lizardo Jr has been in China for nine years and currently lives in Shenzhen where he handles international business development and other services for companies under Bitbank including BW and Bter. He says it remains to be seen how Blockchain-related developments will translate into successful products or services in domestic markets. “They have a much greater chance of being successful in China because it’s for domestic use,” Lizardo Jr. states.

He adds:

“Shenzhen, where our office is located is poised to be the digital currency experimentation zone and could be an example for other places. The factors for international success goes beyond just this industry, China is yet to develop a globally recognizable brand/product/service but perhaps Blockchain technology could lead to that breakthrough.”

Bitcoin plays a major role

Earlier in the cryptocurrency space, China has been known for its interest mainly in Bitcoin. Now, there is a growing interest from the government, corporate organisations and startups to explore the potentials of the distributed ledger technology. The Blockchain spreading in China is being accompanied by the introduction of more altcoins in the Chinese market. Most of them identify with Blockchain technology though Bitcoin still plays a major role in the crypto landscape in China.

Rise of interest in Ethereum

In the case of Ethereum and Ethereum Classic both of which enjoyed a rise in China lately due to greater Chinese interest in these two coins, Lizardo Jr. said he was not expecting such a dramatic rise. He expects the prices of ETH and ETC to continue rising in the long-term barring any major setback due to the hype and the organisation of the developers/community.

He says: “At this point, it continues to be mostly speculative, though the news of large tech firms starting to use Ethereum for projects could lead to some real world use. Bitcoin will remain the reserve currency for entering the altcoin market not only in China but the world for some time. Though at a website we do offer ETH and ETC/CNY pairs as we are the largest ETH/ETC market by volume, in China, we are seeing a big demand for these two tokens in the last couple months. China does have a very developed altcoin market domestically of projects and altcoins that do not make it to the international markets. Teams from overseas also market their projects for the Chinese market regularly. The desire of young tech-savvy investors and the sheer size of the market makes it that projects can be hugely successful simply in the China market.”

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor