The adoption rate of blockchain technology in China continues to impress as the Bank of China has reportedly issued 20 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) in blockchain-based special financial bonds for small and micro-enterprises. According to local news outlet Sina Finance in early December, the funds are specifically used to issue loans to these Chinese small and micro-sized companies to support their continued development in the economy.
As of the end of September, the Bank of China issued around 404 billion yuan ($57.7 billion) to 410,000 small and micro enterprise customers, representing an increase of 35% since a year ago. As a reference, micro-enterprises generally have fewer than 10 employees, while small companies have up to 50 employees.
The news comes as the Chinese government is attaching an ever-increasing level of importance to the digital economy. Earlier in December, Forkast Insights, the research arm of Asia-based Forkast, took an in-depth, comprehensive look at how blockchain technology is integrated in China.
The report pointed out that blockchain technology is rapidly maturing in China and has a slew of “real-world, practical use cases that are far beyond the experimental stage.”
In November, Cointelegraph reported that China’s blockchain development will see a compound annual growth rate of 65.7% from 2018 to 2023, and that the technology will exceed $2 billion by the end of 2023.