Economic Information Daily, a national Chinese newspaper run by Xinhua News Agency – “the biggest and most influential news organization in China” – according to Wikipedia, is to cover the Global Blockchain Summit to be held in Shanghai from the 23rd to the 24th of September.
The two-day event follows Devcon2 – which, in addition to Microsoft’s and Santander’s sponsorship, recently announced Platinum Sponsorship by Dinar Dirham, a seemingly gold backed new cryptocurrency – and Demo Day, which is to release a list of the demo projects and the agenda soon.
The Blockchain Summit is the biggest event so far with some of the world’s biggest brands and household names. In Friday’s opening session, Microsoft and IBM are to be joined by WeBank, China’s first online only bank launched last year by Tencent, whose highly popular instant messaging app, WeChat and QQ, is used by more than half a billion able to access WeBank’s financial products/services from the app.
Their presentation at the blockchain summit, right after Microsoft’s Marlay Gray, may be the most interesting as they are uniquely placed to bring blockchain based fintech to instant messaging services.
Joseph Lubin, founder of Consensys, Etherem’s development powerhouse, is prominently featured as the third keynote speaker, to be followed by R3, Santander’s Blockchain Labs and ChinaLedger, an alliance of numerous financial institutions with the aim of advancing blockchain tech in China.
Saturday morning opens with Garrick Hileman, Professor at Cambridge University, making an announcement related to blockchain research followed by the Boston Consulting Group, a prestigious management consulting firm with yearly revenue of £5 billion, which is expected to make a joint announcement with String Labs, a new VC backed start-up that is “developing and incubating open chain systems and applications,” according to their website.
The Venture Capitalists will have their own panel with Union Square Ventures, one of the more influential Silicon Valley based VC firm, IDG Capital, a China based VC firm that controls billions, as well as Fenbushi, a blockchain based VC fund set up by Wanxiang, one of China’s giant conglomerate.
Ernest & Young will highlight a relatively new field – InsurTech – with their presentation on blockchain use cases in the insurance industry. UBS will present on banks and blockchains and Chronicled will present on their highly promising blockchain based internet of things project.
Overall, the event promises to be the biggest ever with the number of brands in attendance a clear indication that blockchain has arrived. Moreover, the addition of Xinhua, which, according to wikipedia, is “the official press agency of the People’s Republic of China… [and] its president is a member of the Central Committee of China’s Communist Party” suggests the Chinese government has moved towards embracing, if not even promoting, blockchain technology.
