China Wants Its Own Blockchain, Still Doesn't Want Your Bitcoin 😌

China's Communist Party Central Committee and the State Council issued an economic blueprint on October 9 calling for the construction of a national blockchain network, listed as one of 19 measures and published the same day by state news agency Xinhua. The blockchain provision is grouped alongside a nationwide computing grid under a section on merging traditional industry with digital technology, and also references "East Data, West Computing," a framework that routes data processing from eastern cities to western data centers. Implementation has been handed to the Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission and the National Development and Reform Commission, which will determine what the network carries. The document makes no mention of Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency, and Beijing's stance on crypto trading has not changed: a February restatement by the People's Bank of China and seven other agencies confirmed the mainland ban, while the PBOC's August five-year plan reiterated steady development of the digital yuan, China's state-issued digital currency.

China already operates the Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN), launched in April 2020, which does not support independent cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin according to Stanford's DigiChina project, and the new blueprint does not specify whether the national network will extend it. The October 9 document also warned officials against creating bubbles or abandoning the real economy for the virtual one, language that frames the rollout as industrial infrastructure rather than speculative territory. Separately, the plan calls for new rules governing who owns and trades data.

Three days before the blueprint's publication, Joseph Chee, chief executive of Nasdaq-listed Solana Company, told CNBC that "the crypto is going to go through another super cycle," tying that outcome to Beijing granting access to trading in a discussion reported by BeInCrypto. Chee identified capital flight, not policy posture, as the larger obstacle and offered no timeline. Crypto trading remains illegal in mainland China, and the new economic blueprint includes no provisions to alter that status.