The Chinese government appears to be backtracking on a ban on digital currencies with a new official index of blockchain projects.
The China Center for Information Industry Development (CCID), is a state agency under the wing of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which lays down a blueprint for the country’s technology development and regulates the sector.
The CCID plans to publish a list of digital currencies approved for researchers to develop their own projects.
Who’s on the list
The first index will cover 28 cryptocurrencies:
- Ark
- Bitcoin
- Bitcoin Cash
- BitShares
- ByteCoin
- Cardano
- Dash
- Decred
- Ethereum
- Ethereum Classic
- Hcash
- IOTA
- Komodo
- Lisk
- Litecoin
- Monero
- NANO
- NEM
- NEO
- QTUM
- Ripple
- Siacoin
- Steem
- Stellar
- Stratis
- Verge
- Waves
- Zcash
The agency says each technology will be ‘scientifically evaluated’ by professional consultants so the government, research institutes and developers do not have to keep going over the same work.
The evaluation will cover five points:
- The project should have an independent main chain
- Developers should be able to freely create nodes
- The technology should have a published block explorer for easily tracking block information
- The chain should run on open source code
- Project team members should be easy to contact
The government has already announced research into adapting the blockchain to improve auditing.
Blanket ban on ICOs
In September, the People’s Bank of China, the central bank in Beijing, banned all initial coin offerings (ICO).
Since then, the government has softened attitudes towards digital currency and signalled that ministers view blockchain as an emerging technology that will play a major role in the digital economy.
Every indication suggests that China intends to take a lead in developing blockchain applications.
Nevertheless, in April, the central bank issued a statement confirming all Chinese cryptocurrency traders and exchanges had been closed.
Before the ban, China accounted for 75% of the world’s cryptocurrency transactions.
The market has explained China’s cryptocurrency stance as a bid for the state to control the internal market by removing all competition and only allowing interaction with approved technologies.
The central bank claimed the blanket ban was a campaign to stamp out rogue traders and fraudsters ‘charging investors exorbitant fees and rates of interest while deceiving them to invest in ICOs that were just fronts for stealing their money.’