China's Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security added \"blockchain technician/operator\" to its official job classifications this month, alongside eight other new positions. The classification r
China's Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security added "blockchain technician/operator" to its official job classifications this month, alongside eight other new positions. The classification reflects a growing need: companies cannot find enough blockchain developers, and the government needs them to build the Digital Yuan and related digital infrastructure.
In 2018, President Xi Jinping announced that China would lead the world in technological innovation, naming artificial intelligence and blockchain as the drivers of that goal. The Digital Yuan now forms the core of those ambitions. China plans to offer this currency to trading partners, which makes skilled blockchain developers essential. One constraint: Chinese financial markets have limited access globally, and the yuan has not seen wide adoption beyond China's borders.
Government investment tells the story of priority. By November 2019, China produced more than 25% of the world's new blockchain development. The government had allocated $300 million to blockchain work, with annual spending growth projected at 65.7% from 2018 through 2023. Chinese mining operations controlled about 72% of Bitcoin's hash power, according to participants in a blockchain conference held by the Penn Wharton China Center.
"China is very pro-blockchain technology and the government has positioned itself to dominate the blockchain space in the world," one attendee said.
The job title signals what comes next: both state-owned companies and private firms will hire blockchain developers as the sector expands. Companies had struggled to find enough developers.
Chris Larsen, co-founder and chairman of Ripple, told the Wall Street Journal that the United States is putting itself in a risky position by not responding to China's blockchain push. American regulators had shut down fraudulent ICO schemes. But the battle has shifted.
"We won that war," Larsen said. "Now we've got a switch to: 'How do we compete with China? How do we keep up?' And until now, US regulators have helped China by officially giving clarity to the two protocols controlled by Chinese miners: Bitcoin and Ethereum. That's a mistake."
Larsen sees the risk plainly: China's government backing of blockchain development, combined with its control over much of the world's mining infrastructure, enables the country to shape how the technology and financial applications evolve.
