Almost All Chinese Provinces Have Blockchain-Boosting Policies

While many Chinese provinces and cities are cracking down on crypto mining, most are trying to boost their local blockchain industries.

• Out of China's 34 provinces and province-level cities, 33 have enacted policies to accelerate blockchain innovation, local media reported, citing research from Chinese blockchain news site ChainNews.
• The newest issue of China's most important economic-planning document, the Five-Year Plan, named blockchain a nationally strategic technology for the first time, calling on local governments to spur innovation in the field.
• Fourteen governments are offering financial rewards to companies that excel in blockchain innovation.
• Ganzhou, a city in one of China's poorest provinces, Jiangxi, is promising 17.5 million yuan ($2.7 million) to companies that become unicorns, according to the report. A unicorn company is commonly defined as a startup whose valuation reaches $1 billion.
• Shanghai is offering permanent residency to highly skilled workers who move there to work on blockchain, the report said. Permanent residency in Shanghai is a lifetime aspiration for many Chinese citizens because it allows them to live, buy property and access public services in the country's most international city.
• At the same time, several provincial and city governments have moved to shut down or curtail crypto mining, following signals from China's top leadership.