Beijing City Blockchain Touts Interoperability With File Storage Product
The city's government plans to unite data that's spread out among its departments.
Updated Sep 14, 2021 at 1:30 p.m. UTC
ChainMaker, an enterprise blockchain developed with support from Beijing's city government, said it is preparing to be interoperable with the distributed file storage protocol InterPlanetary File System.
- ChainMaker wrote a blog post detailing how the blockchain will be able connect to IPFS on its WeChat account today.
- IPFS is a decentralized peer-to-peer network for storing data. ChainMaker is "controllable" blockchain software and hardware developed under the auspices of Beijing's local government.
- ChainMaker is poised to become Beijing's government blockchain, uniting data that's now siloed across ministries and government departments. A 27-member group that includes state-owned enterprises, banks and universities has pledged to integrate the blockchain across their operations.
- The developers also signed an agreement with the People's Bank of China to integrate the digital yuan across ChainMaker in preparation for a trial program at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
- The consortium is supervised by the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the central bank’s Digital Currency Research Institute, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the national tax and market watchdog and a State Council commission.
- ChainMaker, or Chang'An Chain as it's known in Chinese, was developed by the Beijing-based research institute Beijing Academy of Blockchain and Edge Computing, and released on Jan. 27.
- Enterprise blockchain in China is increasingly receiving government support after it was included in China's five-year plan for 2021 to 2025, while crypto mining is facing a crackdown.