Alibaba and Tencent are two of the biggest names in the Chinese economy. At a time when China-led FUD is causing the Bitcoin markets to go red and enter a ‘bloodbath,’ it appears that Alibaba and Tencent are gearing up for the revival of cryptocurrencies and blockchain based technology in China, despite the government restrictions.
Alibaba, known for their e-commerce platform and record-breaking, tens of billions of dollars of sales in day figures, has been a significant player in the traditional markets. However, the company is now setting their sights on the cryptocurrency markets. Reports from China point at the fact that the company is setting up a cryptocurrency mining platform of their own - known as P2P Node.
This P2P Node platform was registered by Alibaba back in the October of 2017. However, there hasn’t been any news coverage about the platform since then. Things began to change over the past few days as news about Alibaba’s platform began to break. Chinese publications are now reporting that Alibaba has reportedly started off this cryptocurrency trading platform of theirs.
A Chinese cryptocurrency news platform, Cnledger is now reporting that his platform has been launched. Moreover, it is expected that Alibaba will soon integrate this P2P nodes system on to their e-commerce website. As of now, it is not clear how Alibaba plans to use the platform as well as how the Chinese authorities will allow the platform to operate considering they have banned all cryptocurrency exchanges and mining services in China.
In addition to Alibaba, another Chinese giant - Tencent is one the rise. Tencent, which is one of the biggest names when it comes to Chinese investments and international business operations, has recently registered a trademark which has been referred as ‘Ether Lock’ and ‘Ethernet Lock.’ This is a blockchain based system.
Tencent has also been in the news in the past as the company is working with ‘China’s Google,’ Baidu - the search engine over BaaS - a platform which will help Baidu with the safe re-sale or exchange of electronic tickets.
Ever since the cryptocurrency boom started, China has been one country which has been a giant player in the game. China, due to the sheer size of its population as well as a regime which is rather confidential on matters of internal affairs - has managed to build itself as a nation which influences the prices of cryptocurrencies the most. A positive sign from China could mean the markets grow while hostile Chinese governments can lead the markets into a slump.
Such incidents have been noticed multiple times in the past. China has caused a lot of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt in the markets - leading to a fall in prices time and again. The recent dip in the Bitcoin prices where the BTC price fell to a low of more than $11,000 was primarily due to the FUD caused in the markets by China and South Korea.
Alibaba starting off with their cryptocurrency mining platform is a U-turn from what the company founder’s stance was a while ago. Jack Ma had said that while Alibaba is extensively studying the blockchain based technologies, it appears that the world is not ready for cryptocurrencies yet. However, his company has now started their cryptocurrency mining platform.
It would be interesting to see how the Chinese authorities deal with Alibaba’s cryptocurrency plans.