China publishes country’s first blockchain research report

Bitcoin’s growing popularity is being felt across the world, and this is particularly evident in China—a country that sees a significant majority of the global bitcoin trading.

Digital currencies currently don’t have a legal status in China, although experts have been attributing the recent surge in the price of bitcoin to the hearty demand from the Chinese market due to fears of Chinese yuan devaluation. However, it appears that the Chinese government is starting to get with the times.

This week, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) came out with a white paper that explores the applications of blockchain—the technology behind popular digital currency bitcoin.

The research paper, titled “the Blockchain Technology and Application Development Whitepaper,” details the applications of blockchain technology, especially in the finance sector. According to the paper, blockchain can be applied in several scenarios, such as supply-chain management, analyzing finance, entertainment, smart manufacturing, social welfare, education and employment.