The creation of a Chinese “International Blockchain Investment Development Center” announced earlier this month has been cancelled due to the legal technicalities of setting up branch offices, according to a document published on the Investment Association of China’s (IAC) website yesterday, March 27.
The document, stamped March 23, writes that social organizations cannot “set up branch offices or representative offices under representative offices of branch offices,” leading to the IAC withdrawing their request for approval for the Blockchain center.
The development center was supposed to introduce industry standards and Blockchain investment alliances and funds by supporting Chinese Blockchain projects, linking domestic and international resources for Blockchain investment, and leading international forums on the subject.
Earlier this week, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (CMIIT) released a document announcing their support for technological innovation, including Blockchain, and another document about the potential for Blockchain technologies to improve China’s industrial sector.
Chinese organizations have recently supported Blockchain in concrete ways: the state-run Bank of China filed a patent in February for a Blockchain scaling solution, and JD.com, China’s top retailer, launched a startup incubator for foreign Blockchain projects the same month.
In spite of their support for Blockchain, China has cracked down on cryptocurrencies recently, with the ICO ban in the fall of last year, the January ban of “exchange-like services,” and the February ban of foreign exchanges.