China's Blockchain ID Initiative

China's national blockchain initiative, the Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN), has announced plans to leverage blockchain technology for real-name identity verification of the country's 1.4 billion citizens.

Spearheaded by the Ministry of Public Security, the initiative named RealDID will utilise decentralised identity (DID) addresses and private keys to enable users to register and log in to websites anonymously.

This move is likely to raise concerns among data-privacy advocates.

The RealDID service aims to keep business data and transactions separate from personal information.

The BSN highlighted this as the world's first national-level real-name decentralised identity system.

China Social Platforms Mandate Transparency

China's top six social media platforms, including WeChat, Sina Weibo, Douyin, Kuaishou, Bilibili, and Xiaohongshu, are now mandating content creators with over 500,000 or 1 million followers to publicly display their real names or those of their financial backers.

This initiative is aimed to enhance credibility and public supervision.

It aligns with the broader initiative of integrating blockchain for real-name identity verification.

BSN China, overseen by China's National Information Center in collaboration with tech giants China Mobile and China UnionPay, leads the initiative.

Its international operations are managed independently by BSN Global.

U.S.-China Growing Tension

Recently, a bipartisan U.S. bill aims to ban federal government officials from using China-made blockchains, citing potential national security risks and data protection concerns.

The bill reflects growing tensions between the U.S. and China in the technology and blockchain space.

The purpose of the bill is to reduce potential national security threats and protect private data from foreign adversaries.