Blockchain Needs Some Centralization, Says Chinese SEC Official
An official from one of China’s financial regulators argued at the “Two Sessions” conference in Beijing on Sunday that blockchains are better if not completely decentralized.
Acting as a policy advisor at the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference this week, Zhang Ye, head of the technology unit at China’s Securities Regulatory Commission, encouraged the public sector in China to embrace advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain technology in public services.
However, at the same time, he cautioned that, while he believes in the potential of blockchain, to fully achieve its benefits will rely on using a centralized infrastructure.
“Blockchain’s advocates for absolute decentralization have no solid ground, because [blockchain] itself is a software developed in a centralized way. So is the public key infrastructure, which remains an important feature adopted by blockchain,” Zhang said in an interview with , an official mouthpiece that covers the securities industry in China.
He further said that, while in some scenarios a decentralized environment may be advantageous, it’s questionable whether all current applications need to be decentralized.
“The key is to explore how to achieve decentralization through a centralized infrastructure,” he continued.
This isn’t the first time such comments have been made by officials in China.
As last October, officials from the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) including Yao Qian, the director at the central bank’s digital currency research lab, have outlined a vision for a centrally issued and managed digital currency, which may still be decentralized in its underlying technology.
Yet, in January, the PBoC’s went far as picturing scenarios that could remove standard features of public blockchaina such as the peer-to-peer mechanism and anonymity from a centrally issued digital currency.
In addition, Li Lihui, former president of the Bank of China and now head of the blockchain research at a fintech self-regulation group in China, previously that most of the current efforts in blockchain adoption from entities such as IBM and R3 are, in essence, designed with multiple centralizations instead complete decentralization.
image via Shutterstock
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Blockchain technology’s disruptive force in business and commerce has been well documented. With strong momentum ensuing from its beginnings as the foundational technology supporting bitcoin, distributed ledger technology shows great promise in terms of its potential impact on the future of our planet.
One emerging enterprise at the nexus of these developments is AG, a German fintech company. NAGA’s strategic aim is to create world-class mobile and web applications for the capital markets and gaming sectors, along with cutting edge, blockchain-based solutions.
Listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange as one of Europe’s fastest growing fintech firms, with six offices operating in five countries, NAGA’s successful IPO in July 2017 sparked a share price increase of 500 percent within less than three months.
Indicative of its strong advancement as a curator of cutting-edge concepts and business ideas, NAGA is backed by a number of high profile shareholders, including the Chinese and Hauck & Aufhäuser (one of Europe’s oldest banks founded in 1796).
“We Don’t Copy, We Disrupt” is a key theme undergirding NAGA’s roadmap of progress. Employing a highly data-driven approach, it aims to reimagine the prevailing banking sector model through innovative, transparent and simplistic mobile-first concepts. All product development and design efforts target international expansion and a global marketing solutions.
New Collaborations, NAGA’s Acceleration Forward
NAGA’s foundational ecosystem is based on , an existing iOS and Android app and online trading platform that functions as a social network for traders. Operational since early 2015, this network is utilized by hundreds of thousands of registered users, facilitating over 200,000 monthly transactions at the tune of more than $4 billion.
Signaling its next significant breakthrough, in December 2016. This venture merges the financial trading world with the gaming world, allowing users to trade in-game merchandise. Currently under development, Switex is scheduled to launch in beta form in Q1 of 2018.
NAGA is also scheduled to launch a digital wallet that will align both platforms noted above. This will allow tokens to be stored so that individuals can use them for SwipeStox, Switex and other forthcoming projects such as the NAGA Trading Academy.
This tool will also provide a mechanism for the conversion of blockchain assets such as bitcoin, ether, litecoin and others. Moreover, NAGA plans to launch a debit card which will support users in their desire to spend cryptocurrencies both online and offline.
Prominent Figures
The NAGA Group AG was recently buoyed by the announcement that Roger Ver and Mate Tokay, bitcoin.com’s CEO and COO respectively, had joined the company’s team of advisors.
Through the influence of these two cryptocurrency leaders, the company hopes to fuel the next iteration of barrier-free investing into stocks or virtual goods through its forthcoming proprietary token, NAGA Coin.
As arguably bitcoin’s first angel investor, having funded the seed rounds for a majority of the entire first generation of bitcoin-related businesses, including the bitcoin Foundation, Bitpay, Blockchain.info, Ripple and Kraken, Ver is considered a prominent voice and strong advocate for bitcoin adoption around the world. His philosophy and ideology of libertarianism and “voluntarism” align pretty succinctly with those espoused by NAGA.
Ver holds the view that every person on the planet has the right to freedom of choice, voluntary association and self-governance. This assertion aligns well with NAGA’s aim to build a supportive ecosystem which will allow underbanked individuals throughout the world to participate in financial and crypto markets. This opportunity for involvement in the world of trading and investing is seen as a critical step to fostering financial independence and free lifestyles.
Ver’s colleague, Tokay, is also an active and vocal proponent of bitcoin. Having cut his teeth as a bitcoin miner in 2013, Tokay continues to stay abreast of emerging crypto trends as part of his involvement with several successful blockchain-related projects.
“I am thrilled to join the NAGA token sale as an advisor; they already have a working product that will allow millions of unbanked people to trade on the crypto markets and with that giving them the opportunity to reach financial freedom,” Tokay said.
Dovetailing off of this news was the decision to add bitcoin Cash (BCH) to the list of accepted cryptocurrencies for NAGA’s upcoming token sale.
“We consider BCH to represent the future of cryptocurrencies because of its small transaction cost and other benefits,” said NAGA founder Benjamin Bilski. “Thus, we believe that it will reduce the barriers for our potential investors and future customers to become a part of our ecosystem.”
Igniting the Next Frontier
With the ultimate vision to establish a cryptocurrency that allows anyone to invest and trade easily and securely, NAGA will launch a token pre-sale on November 20, 2017. The Naga Development Association Ltd. will partner with the NAGA Group to introduce the ERC20-based token, NAGA Coin (NGC), a decentralized currency unit with the purpose of bringing together all of the platforms the NAGA network through its own proprietary NAGA Wallet.
During the pre-sale, 20 million NGC tokens will be available with a 30 percent sale bonus. The main sale will then commence on December 1, 2017, and last until December 15, 2017. The maximum cap in tokens for the main sale is 200 million.
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