China has launched a national Web3 data trading platform to facilitate data exchange among corporate entities.
The exchange was launched during the 2023 Hangzhou Summit with over 300 technology firms, including Alibaba and Huawei, successfully onboarded. The data trading platform will leverage blockchain technology to ensure each transaction is “immutable and traceable,” according to a statement.
Chinese officials stated that the exchange would support the trading of enterprise information technology data between corporate entities, offering several perks, including privacy.
The Hangzhou Data Exchange utilizes blockchain research, privacy computing, and other technologies to realize trusted sharing and effective use of data across departments and regions under data security and privacy protection.
While fees are yet to be publicly disclosed, it is widely expected that the data exchange will contribute a chunk to Hangzhou’s digital economy. In 2020, following forays into blockchain and the metaverse, Hangzhou’s digital economy comprised 26.6% of its total gross domestic product (GDP), amounting to $65.5 billion.
Hangzhou is positioning itself to become the center of all things Web3 in mainland China. Recently, the city’s internet court ruled that non-fungible tokens (NFTs) “have the object characteristics of property rights such as value, scarcity, controllability, and tradability.”
Experts submit that the instrument of settling transactions on the data exchange will be the digital yuan, China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) which is nearing a full-scale launch after a two-year pilot.
The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) has been probing new ways to increase the digital yuan adoption amongst residents, with President Xi Jinping lending his voice to urge municipal governments to promote digital yuan usage in their regions.
Previous plans by the government to launch a national blockchain-based offering have not gone according to plans. In 2022, the government announced a national NFT marketplace designed to serve as a secondary market for digital collectibles, but after several botched attempts to go live, the project is yet to see a public rollout.
A metaverse craze
China’s blanket ban on digital assets has fuelled a metaverse frenzy in Chinese cities with the country eyeing the possibility of becoming an industry leader.
Shanghai, Nanjing, and Beijing have publicly disclosed blueprints seeking to grow the valuations of their local metaverse industries.
A common denominator in their plans is deepening the existing blockchain talent pool, attracting global players, and incorporating the metaverse with key sectors of their economy, including the automobile and tourism industries.
CoinGeek Conversations with Lise Li: Why Bitcoin SV will succeed in China