A senior official of one of China's financial regulators argued at the conference "Two Sessions" in Beijing on Sunday that blockchains are better if not totally decentralized.

As a political adviser to the Chinese People 's Political Consultative Conference this week, Zhang Ye, chief of the technology unit of the Securities Regulatory Commission, urged the public sector in China to adopt advanced technologies such as l'. artificial intelligence and blockchain technology. public services.

However, at the same time, he warned that even if he believes in the potential of the blockchain, to fully realize its benefits, it will require the use of a centralized infrastructure.

"Defenders of the absolute decentralization of Blockchain do not have a solid foundation, because [blockchain] is a centrally developed software, as is the public key infrastructure, which remains a feature important blockchain, "said Zhang with Securities Times, an official spokesman who covers the securities industry in China.

He added that although in some scenarios a decentralized environment may be advantageous, it is questionable whether all current applications should be decentralized.

"The key is to explore how to achieve decentralization through a centralized infrastructure," he continued.

This is not the first time such comments have been made by Chinese officials.

As reported last October, officials from the People's Bank of China (PBoC), including Yao Qian, director of the central bank's digital currency research lab, presented a vision of a digital currency. centralized and managed. decentralized in its underlying technology.

Yet in January, the vice-governor of the PBoC went so far as to imagine scenarios likely to remove the standard features of public blockchaina such as the peer-to-peer mechanism and anonymity of a central digital currency.

In addition, Li Lihui, former chairman of the Bank of China and now head of blockchain research in a fintech self-regulatory group in China, has already commented that most current efforts in the adoption Blockchain entities such as IBM and R3 are, in essence, designed with multiple centralization instead of full decentralization.

Securities Regulatory Commission image via Shutterstock

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