Less than a week after President Xi Jinping’s iconic speech on blockchain technology, another top official from the Chinese government has openly endorsed decentralized distributed ledgers as the future of banking and financial institutions.

Li Wei, head of the People’s Bank of China’s technology department, said Monday that the time is right for commercial banks to step up and integrate blockchain technology into their day-to-day operations.

Wei, who serves as the Director of the Science and Technology Department of the People’s Bank of China, spoke at length about the potential of blockchain in today’s digital economy. He stated that blockchain technology has all the necessary ingredients to help commercial banks to mitigate fraud risks while simultaneously helping small-sized and medium-sized enterprises secure loans.

Echoing President Xi’s Blockchain Speech

Wei’s statement essentially echoed the Presidential speech on October 24 and also pitched blockchain as a solution to many of China’s current banking problems. President Xi, however, went beyond blockchain’s role in the banking sector and highlighted a range of areas where the technology could play a positively disruptive role, as BeInCrypto had previously reported.

Specifically, Xi urged the blockchain community in China to step up and harness the true potential of the fast-evolving technology to boost people’s livelihood, create new opportunities in education and employment, ensure food safety, streamline pension schemes for optimal efficiency, and promote public welfare.

Time for Another Bitcoin Rally?

As we reported earlier Sunday, Xi’s speech yielded the desired impact on his target audience as interest in blockchain technology surged to new highs shortly after.

Interest in Bitcoin was also on the rise as the number of Bitcoin-related search queries grew substantially following Xi’s speech.

Many analysts and traders speculate that President Xi’s speech was at least partially responsible for the recent rally that rescued Bitcoin from fully succumbing into a bearish trend.

At press time, Bitcoin is relatively stable and trading in the $9,300 – $9,400 range.

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