Bitcoin and Blockchain in China with John Riggins
John Riggins from BTC Media joined us in a conversation on the latest happenings of bitcoin and blockchain in China. We discussed the chronology in how bitcoin became mainstream in the Chinese technology ecosystem. John also shared the major players in China who are leveraging on bitcoin mining and exchanges, the applications of blockchain technology to different areas and also Chinese issuing their own cryptocurrencies that is independent of Ethereum. Last but not least, we discussed how the phenomenon of initial coin offerings (ICO) are heating up the Chinese cryptocurrency space.
Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with time-stamps included):
- John Riggins, (@DistRiggs, LinkedIn), Head of Operations Asia Pacific at BTC Media [0:38]
- How did you start your career? [1:09]
- What brought him from US to China thru BTC Media? [2:32]
- What is your role in BTC media and how does your organization advocate cryptocurrency and financial technologies? [3:05]
- Throughout your career journey, what are the interesting lessons learnt? [3:53]
- Blockchain & Bitcoin in China [4:43]
- To help our audience, can you give an introduction to the concept of cryptocurrency, for example, bitcoin and the role of blockchain plays in the space as a technology? [4:56]
- Can you give a comprehensive (or chronological) overview in how bitcoin and blockchain technology have been adopted in China? [6:21]
- What is the bitcoin supply chain like in China (bitcoin miners, traders and exchanges)? [7:32]
- China is one of the major economies which are heavily invested in bitcoin mining, and can you tell us some of the companies in China which are doing this? [8:45]
- Bitmain
- Bitsy
- What are the interesting blockchain/cryptocurrencies startups in China? [9:29]
- How are the BAT (given their influence in fintech) and traditional banks looking at blockchain technology? [11:54]
- Baidu invested in a blockchain company called circle.
- Alibaba working with PwC
- Tencent partnering with Bank of China.
- Can you talk about the concept of initial coin offerings in the blockchain world? [13:12]
- Recently, Ethereum and its derivatives, Ethereum tokens such as Gollum & Basic Attention tokens (for Brave browser) are becoming popular, have you seen similar type of token movements in China? [14:57]
- What are the major trends happening in China with respect to fintech and cryptocurrencies and where do you see the market goes in the next 1-2 years? [17:02]
Podcast Information:
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The show is hosted by Bernard Leong (@bleongcw) and are sponsored by Ideal Workspace (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) with their new Altizen Desk on Indiegogo (Twitter, Facebook, Medium). Also check out Ideal Workspace’s new standing desk, Altizen and sign up for their mailing list. Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, “The Beginning” from Red Cliff Soundtrack.
