Conflux Blockchain startup Sees $5M Investment From Shanghai Government

Conflux stands as a blockchain startup based in Beijing, and had received a research grant worth $5 million by the Changing District Government as well as the Shanghai Science and Technology Committee.

Gaining A Grant From Shanghai’s Government

According to Conflux, the startup stands as the only permissionless, public blockchain project backed by the government of China, at least openly, anyway. The Shanghai government had pulled all the stops, as well, incorporating the Conflux project into a list of some of the top high-tech projects, 57 in total.

This comes by way of the Shanghai government’s tech committee, who had given out an official document on the 25th of November, 2020. Of these top 57 technologies, Conflux shares the space with big things such as aerospace technology and 5G

According to the statement, this funding will be leveraged in order to develop the research of the public chain further. Conflux also plans to start developing an aerospace supply chain within its blockchain, as well.

Conflux Added To The Five Year Plan

The Shanghai government had opted to include Conflux’s project within its latest iteration of the Five-Year Plan. This plan stands as a number of economic and social initiatives dedicated to defining the societal development and economy of the country within the future.

As it stands now, China has been primarily working on the development of permissioned blockchain technology, all the while showing extreme caution regarding decentralized public chains. One of the many reasons for China’s distaste for it, is public chains’ ability to launch its own Initial Coin Offering, or ICO, which would see the chain raise capital and distribute cryptocurrencies that could serve to replace fiat, such as the Yuan.

Shanghai Given The Thumbs Up For Conflux

Fan Long stands as the co-founder of Conflux, and highlighted something especially important. He explained that the grant, significant as it is, is actually the secondary boon out of the Shanghai government. Through just giving Conflux the grant, the government essentially “greenlit” the firm by giving its permission to operate, showing its support for the public permissionless blockchain.

Something of import in this entire matter is the banning of fiat-to-crypto trading and ICOs in general since 2017 by the People’s Bank of China. Conflux, however, has never bothered to try an ICO, not even doing any form of centralized token sale, as well.

Shanghai’s government had already agreed to help Conflux, doing so by way of opening an incubation center and research institute. This was given alongside research funding, the amount itself undisclosed.