Uncovering opportunities and challenges in China’s crypto landscape; Insights into Adoption, Regulation, and Innovation from our recent Community Call
🌐 China’s Ethereum Ecosystem
China has a rapidly growing market and a thriving community of blockchain enthusiasts. At the end of the day, they do represent 68% of total global blockchain patent filing!
As the Ethereum ecosystem continues to evolve, it’s important to take a closer look at the impact it’s having in one of the biggest metropolitans — China. We’ve sat down and had a in depth conversation with experts and researchers to get a better understanding on some of these developments in our recent community call.
Our guests include Thomas Zhang; Chief Editor from BlockBeats, Tim; Investment Manager at KuCoin Ventures, and Dr. Qin Wang; a Research Scientist at The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. We’ll discuss their thoughts on various topics, including the future of cryptocurrencies and the role of developers in the Ethereum community.
Join us as we explore the challenges and opportunities facing the cryptocurrency market in China, and gain insights into the future of this dynamic and rapidly-evolving industry 👇
🚀 Is Ethereum and Bitcoin gaining traction in China?
Bitcoin and Ethereum have been making waves in China’s rapidly growing cryptocurrency market. Hong Kong has been experimenting with opening up to BTC and ETH, but many regulatory requirements make it difficult to gain official recognition. Thomas Zhang from Blockbeats believes that this will “make it unlikely for China to officially recognize cryptocurrencies in the near future”.
However, Tim from KuCoin Ventures is more optimistic about the developments of web3 and crypto in mainland China. He believes that “as blockchain technologies continue to innovate and establish a dominant presence in the globalizing markets, decentralized application will become more practical and tailored towards societal needs”. This of course is great news for the ecosystem since it will “allow the whole acceptance to be more smooth and seamless from society’s point of view”. Already in 2019 alone, China saw over 250 enterprise blockchain projects being launched.
Dr. Qin Wang approaches the topic from an academic point of view, revealing “that the theoretical science of Ethereum paired with practical gains experienced by developers will lead to a mutual achievement in iterating and progressing the Ethereum ecosystem”. It is difficult to predict how regulation will unfold and with the current strict policies in China, the development of Ethereum is limited to some extent. However, Dr. Qin Wang “hopes to see more innovation in algorithmic stablecoins and expects steady progress for Ethereum in 2023”.
💻 A closer look at Ethereum’s vibrant Developer Community
In a space this novel, all information and collaboration becomes important. This is exactly why student communities are making a breakthrough in the Ethereum ecosystem. This is no different in China. Thomas Zhang mentions that “the main catalyst for progress in the Ethereum ecosystem are the various community groups centered around learning, developing and innovating”. The paradigm shift occurring in Asia over the last decades has given many young people desire to join new communities and build exciting projects. There is “a lot of untapped potential hidden within the Ethereum ecosystem which is yet to be explored by a a country with a population of over 1 billion people”. When asked about the future star of blockchain innovations, Thomas Zhang believes that “NFTs will definitely be the sparking point” — Do you agree?
☕ Afternoon coffees, brainstorming, spending a lot of time building and developing, all these features are part of a creative process which can easily be expressed visually through NFTs. Tim contributes to this by adding that “Ethereum could even be the cryptocurrency that positions itself to a leading role in onboarding more developers onto the ecosystem”.
👩🎓 From Students to Developers: How Ethereum is empowering China’s Tech communities
Tech communities in China have become the forerunner of innovation. The untapped potential of decentralized applications is becoming more and more apparent. The current projected market size of blockchain application in China is sitting at over 12 billion yuan. When asked regarding the leaders of innovation, Thomas believes that “SocialFI would definitely be taking the podium”. Culturally, communities are heavily present in Asia, combining niche specific social platform focusing around hyper specific topics such as Gaming, Anime or Blockchain just to name a few, would certainly play a key role in developing Ethereum in one of Asia’s biggest tech hubs.
The creator economy remains rather unbalanced, with content creators not having direct ownership of their produced content. A vertical combination of social media platforms and dApps could become the solution. Students are very eager to become part of communities and shape the future of innovation in China. On behalf of Tim, he believes that “Ethereum will only continue to move forward, and as web3 social platforms mature, services such as on-chain lending will become more popular and accepted” — What do you think?
🔖 The next chapter: From hurdles to opportunities?
We are extremely proud to see the eager growth in interest of the next generation, but there are also a lot of regulatory requirements which are making it a little tricky for Ethereum adoption in China. We are all aware of the recent events surrounding the cryptocurrency sphere — so China aims to implement robust measures which aim to protect investors”.
What impact will these regulations have on the growth of Ethereum in China in your opinion?
👉🏽 Let’s have a chat all together! Join the ETHGlobal Community today
