Despite the governmental ban on cryptocurrencies in China, China’s talented experts and entrepreneurs have become the global web3 leader, with many venturing beyond the country’s border. From crypto derivative products to NFT games building, China Web3 entrepreneurs’ footprint is far-reaching across the globe.
It’s a great challenge to China entrepreneurs’ angle in trying to build global web3 business and still maintaining their roots in China by taking advantage of the home’s wide variety of tech talent. Some entrepreneurs try forming anonymity while running their Web3 business. At the same time, some don’t want to draw the authorities to their business because there is no firm rule prohibiting operating in China and serving overseas users.
China has many tech talents and has played a great role in the Blockchain industry’s early development. Some of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, such as Crypto.com, Binance, KuCoin, Huobi, and FTX, started in China, and in fact, the world’s largest crypto mining company Bitman was founded in Beijing.
Some Web3 developers in China abide by governmental rules and are involved in building infrastructure for digital collectibles. At the same time, the government gives kudos to some due to their brave inventions. An example is Alibaba financial affiliate Ant Group, which has devised variable Blockchain services, useful in tracking food supply chains for security and as evidence verification in court. Others are TikTok and Tencent.
Many internet users firmly believe that Web2 is mainly dominated by centralizing, profitable big companies such as Google and Meta, and some part of Web3 is reclaiming the internet through the distribution of ledger technologies such as Blockchain and promises greater decentralized and user ownership.
Blockchain has two widely known uses, NFT and cryptocurrencies, and they have attracted billions of dollars in investment, but they are not only limited to use cases.
Web3 is a space that lots of people are interested in. China is still figuring out what it wants from Web3 and doesn’t want to miss out on not being one of the countries enjoying the benefits of Web3. Because in 2019, President Xi Jinping personally endorsed Blockchain’s role in the revolution of technology.
China wants a technological revolution but doesn’t want falling cryptocurrency prices agitating the market. China has moved to ban initial coin offerings and crypto-based transactions because of their financial risks. But there are other beneficial areas of Blockchain, such as NFTs, which China has warned not to use as financial securities. Rather, it is rebranding them as digital collectibles which can only be bought with China’s fiat currency. The RMB has low liquidity and is tasked with promoting copyright protection.
