China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has released its official cryptocurrency ratings. The “domestic experts” awarded Ethereum 1st and Bitcoin 13th out of 28 places May 17.

As online cryptocurrency news account cnLedger reports quoting local media outlet China Electronics News (CEN), the Chinese government’s top five cryptocurrencies begin with Ethereum, followed by Steem, Lisk, NEO and Komodo.

1/ Public blockchain ratings by China's ministry is out: #Ethereum ranks top of the 28 cryptos evaluated

Source (in Chinese): https://t.co/9jStIiFKcc — cnLedger (@cnLedger) May 17, 2018

The first tranche of ratings involved 28 cryptocurrencies, with Beijing’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology looking to expand the series to include public blockchain projects and more crypto assets.

The scheme only came to light earlier this month when the Ministry announced it at a Beijing conference.

“First-rate domestic experts and scholars” contributed to the ratings, which they calculated on the basis of three indexes: “technology,” “application” and “innovation.”

Ethereum scored highly across all three, giving it a lead rating which echoes its first place in Weiss’ cryptocurrency ratings from January this year.

Conversely, Bitcoin appeared lacking in the “technology” and “application” fields, despite beating every other crypto asset in “innovation.”

“The results show that the typical representative of the second-generation blockchain technology is Ethereum's technology assessment index,” CEN wrote.

Responding on Twitter, commentators nonetheless found it difficult to understand China’s logic, the mood similar to the uproar which ensued as Weiss gave Bitcoin a ‘C+.’