The Global Blockchain Summit will be held in Shanghai

The big news about blockchain this year is that the week-long International Blockchain Conference will be held in Shanghai from September 19th to 24th. The DevCon Developer Conference and the 2nd Blockchain Global Summit will be the focus of this conference.

Wanxiang Blockchain Lab is a non-profit organization that studies blockchain and its technological development. A spokesperson told CNN: "We have identified overseas experts in this field and hope that they will come here to show the Chinese audience, including the industry and regulators, what is happening outside and the changes that our foreign team has brought to China."

More than 40 speakers attended the conference, including representatives from Microsoft, UBS, Santander, Ernest & Young, and other institutions, as well as experts from Ethereum, HyperLedger, R3, Ethcore, Circle, ConsenSys, e-commerce platform OpenBazaar, and Zcash.

The International Blockchain Week was organized by Wanxiang Blockchain Lab and funded by Wanxiang Holdings, a large enterprise that is one of the largest blockchain sponsors in China. The enterprise has invested heavily in the blockchain field and founded Fenbushi Capital with a $50 million blockchain venture capital fund in late 2015.

A Wanxiang Blockchain Lab spokesperson told CCN that they have already brought blockchain technology to China: “Just because we held the first summit in Shanghai last year, banks, governments and other financial institutions have started to pay attention to blockchain (not just Bitcoin).”

Since the Blockchain Global Summit was held in Shanghai last October, the world's attention to blockchain technology has soared, even reaching a fever pitch in the West. Although media attention has faded, Chinese companies are still investing heavily in blockchain, which means that blockchain has become a trend in the world's second largest economy.

In the past few weeks alone, financial institutions and China’s largest technology companies have made a slew of blockchain announcements. Baidu, known as China’s Google, joined Chinese strategic investors including banks to invest $60 million in Circle. Tencent, one of China’s largest Internet companies and owner of WeChat, joined a financial blockchain consortium with 30 other financial and technology companies. Meanwhile, Ping An Bank, one of China’s largest financial institutions, joined R3.

In addition, Chinese regulators seem to have changed their attitude and recently released a new draft law. The draft intends to protect virtual assets in the same way as actual financial assets. It is not clear whether blockchain assets such as smart contract tokens or blockchain ledgers are included, but global recognition of the potential for blockchain innovation and the participation of large Chinese technology companies and financial institutions seem to be conducive to a better regulatory environment. Following London and the United States, China's regulators are currently in the consultation period of "responsible innovation" in the hope of improving decades or even centuries of financial technology (Fintech) stereotypes.

Shanghai's International Blockchain Week seems to be the top event of 2016, indicating that blockchain has taken center stage this year, and hopes that next year will bring major innovations in the financial and technology fields. "China has indeed made considerable progress in a short period of time, and we hope that these developments will contribute to the financial industry."

A spokesperson for Wanxiang Blockchain Lab further added that the Chinaledger Alliance, which consists of 11 regional commodity trading institutions, and stock exchanges and financial asset exchanges led by Wanxiang Blockchain Lab will make a large number of announcements at the summit to recruit new experts and members.

The summit will be further unveiled to the public throughout the day, when entrepreneurs will showcase their blockchain products. As blockchain continues to drive new innovations to the next level, we may see those rare moments when a brand’s new product is unveiled to the world.