China Unveils National Blockchain Plan While Mainland Bitcoin Ban Stays In Place
China's top two policymaking bodies published a sweeping new blockchain plan on October 9. It talks about national infrastructure, manufacturing, and data markets. It does not mention Bitcoin once, and the mainland's ban on cryptocurrency trading is untouched.
THE POLICY BEHIND THE HEADLINE
The document, titled "Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Developing New Productive Forces," was issued by the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council and made public through the state news agency Xinhua. Among its measures is a call to build a national blockchain network alongside an integrated national computing power network. The plan also pushes the "Eastern Data, Western Computing" project, a data infrastructure effort designed to store the output of China's economy, and calls for deeper digitalization of manufacturing. Two bodies, the Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission and the National Development and Reform Commission, will oversee the rollout.
WHAT THE DOCUMENT LEAVES OUT
China has operated a Blockchain-based Service Network since 2020, a state-backed platform that supports enterprise and government applications while keeping cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin off its rails. The new policy does not say whether the national network builds on that existing system or replaces it. What it does not do is loosen the blanket ban on cryptocurrency transactions that has been in place since 2021, a ban that also extends to foreign crypto companies trying to serve customers on the mainland. Beijing's own digital currency, the digital yuan, keeps expanding instead. The number of banks authorized to offer digital yuan services has climbed to roughly 30.
HONG KONG AS THE TEST LAB
Hong Kong operates under its own financial rules within the "one country, two systems" framework, and it has spent the past year allowing Bitcoin trading on licensed exchanges while the mainland keeps its ban. Whether that happens with Beijing's quiet blessing is a matter of interpretation, not confirmed policy, but the pattern between Hong Kong's moves and the mainland's new appetite for blockchain infrastructure is hard to miss.
A FORMER UBS BANKER'S SUPERCYCLE CALL
Days before the policy dropped, Joseph Chee, who previously ran UBS's Asia investment banking business and now runs the Nasdaq-listed Solana Company, made a specific claim on CNBC's Squawk Box Asia. He said that if Beijing finds a way to manage crypto trading and cross-border access, the asset class could enter "another super cycle." Chee pointed to Hong Kong as the place where Beijing is testing how that kind of access might be controlled, and he compared it to how South Korea has managed to keep crypto trading contained within its own exchanges. He gave no timeline for when, or if, the mainland would actually open the door.
Nothing in the new policy confirms Chee's prediction. What it confirms is that Beijing is willing to put blockchain infrastructure on a national priority list while still keeping Bitcoin itself locked out. The gap between those two positions, infrastructure yes, the asset no, is exactly where the next move will have to come from, and neither Xinhua's document nor Chee's interview says when that happens.
This story comes from the Simply Bitcoin Live show. Watch the full episode.
