China's Dive Into Blockchain, Digital ID Spurs Rest of World to Action

News on crypto and blockchain technology is coming in abundance from China.

China is not the first country to start looking in the direction of putting IDs on a blockchain.

Baby steps to giant leapsThe first step toward blockchain was made in 2016, when China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology published a white paper on China's blockchain technology and application development, which lists the benefits of blockchain and explains how its applications could be regulated in different sectors of economy.

In the Chinese context, the importance that the government attaches to the digital economy, and its cautious but promising endorsements of blockchain technology are important signals that investors should take seriously.

Blockchain identification elsewhere in the worldIn other countries, governments and financial structures are also pondering whether blockchain can be applied to various systems to reduce costs and facilitate citizen access to data.

In February 2018, the European Commission launched the EU Blockchain Observatory and Forum to consolidate the main developments of the technology and to support European countries engaging with parties working in the blockchain space.

According to the JRC report, the European Commission has identified use cases of blockchain in the government sector for citizen ID management, taxation reporting and e-voting, among others.

In the first half of 2016, the Estonian government and the blockchain-based digital signature system Guardtime reached an agreement for the transfer of electronic medical records data of over 1 million citizens of the country onto a blockchain.

What's next?The introduction of blockchain technology in the government sector all around the world is an irreversible process.

Future-focused countries such as China or South Korea want to use blockchain as early as possible in order to reduce financial costs.