China Everbright Bank (CEB), a major commercial bank in China and one of the world’s largest public companies, is debuting a blockchain-based supply chain finance solution by Ant Financial. Ant Financial, the financial arm of Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba, has partnered with CEB to collaboratively implement Duo Chain — a network services platform designed to handle supply chain-related financial transactions. Ant Financial started working on the Duo Chain in 2019 CEB and Ant Financial initially formed their partnership during the second half of 2019. CEB is the first Chinese bank to deploy Ant Financial’s Duo Chain, as reported by local …
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba announced its import e-commerce platform Koala has updated its products to include a full-link traceability blockchain system on March 16, according to a Sina Finance report from March 17. Blockchain increases logistic transparency The report revealed that the integration of Ant Financial’s blockchain in the Koala platform allows online buyers to find out the purchasing goods detailed logistic information through scanning a QR code with Alipay. The updated Koala application is designed to provide consumers with a traceable icon after completing the purchase on the order page. A blockchain QR code and an anti-counterfeit fingerprint sign …
Fintech and blockchain developer Ant Financial, an affiliate of e-commerce giant Alibaba, has been ranked the fifth most valuable private firm in China. In an inaugural rankings report by Hurun, which is best known for compiling a rich list for China, Ant Financial is the top firm in its field and fifth largest in a ranking of all firms across industries. Published on Jan. 9, the report reveals that Ant Financial has hit a market valuation of $143 billion, based on a closing price from Nov. 29, 2019. Alibaba ranked top of all private enterprises in the country, at a …
Alibaba Group’s movie-making arm Alibaba Pictures reportedly plans to tokenize distribution rights for its new film "Striding into the Wind,” Chinese English-language publication China.org.cn reports on Nov. 22. The company has purportedly signed an agreement with New York-based decentralized entertainment platform Breaker, formerly known as SingularDTV, to distribute the film overseas using its blockchain platform. Li Jie, senior vice president of Alibaba Pictures and CEO of Alibaba's ticketing app Taopiaopiao, reportedly announced the news during the China Golden Rooster & Hundred Flowers Film Festival on Nov. 20. New film will be released on SingularDTV's Ethereum-based EtherVision The executive noted that …
China’s Zhejiang province has processed nearly $6 billion via a blockchain medical billing platform using Ant Financial’s blockchain technology, Chinese publication QNSB reports on Nov. 18. Successfully piloted in 2018, the blockchain-enabled platform allows citizens to make doctor’s appointments, get prescriptions as well as pay, record and store their medical bills online. At a local blockchain event on Nov. 18, the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Finance announced that the platform had 480 medical institutions across the province as of Oct. 28. The officials said that the platform processed 41.7 billion Chinese yuan ($5.9 billion) as of October. The platform is …
Bitcoin (BTC) rewards shopping app Lolli has responded to Alibaba’s denial of a partnership between the two companies following Singles’ Day marketing blitz. CEO of Lolli Alex Adelman refuted Alibaba’s denial of partnership with Lolli. In an email to Cointelegraph on Nov 17, Adelman maintained that Lolli did have a partnership with the Alibaba Group, saying: “We’ve been partnered with Alibaba Group since May through AliExpress. We have driven AliExpress significant revenue and distributed bitcoin rewards to our users.” A partnership rejected It was previously reported that Lolli introduced an affiliate partnership with Alibaba enabling its shoppers to earn 5% …
The financial technology subsidiary of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, Ant Financial, started testing its enterprise blockchain platform. According to local news outlet Sina Finance on Nov. 12th, the senior director of technology and business innovation at Ant Financial, Jieli Li, announced the development at the World Blockchain Summit at Wuzhen. The firm’s plans to launch its own blockchain platform were first reported in September last year. During the event, Li said that the platform — dubbed Ant Blockchain Open Alliance — will go live three months after the testing period. The platform aims to support small and medium-sized businesses by …
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has partnered with Bitcoin (BTC) rewards shopping app Lolli, enabling its shoppers to earn 5% back in Bitcoin. Alibaba customers can now get Satoshis (sats), the smallest unit of Bitcoin currency, worth 0.00000001 BTC, when shopping “thousands of items online,” Lolli says. World’s biggest retailer and biggest one-day shopping event The partnership was announced on Singles Day, a shopping holiday that is celebrated in China on Nov. 11 and is considered to be the world’s biggest one-day shopping event. According to Lolli, Alibaba shoppers spent more than $31 billion on Singles Day in 2018. Alex Adelman, …
Earlier in October 2019, Binance announced a fiat on-ramp for crypto trading via Chinese payment services Alipay and WeChat. This move was part of the exchange giant’s peer-to-peer (P2P) trading rollout for Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and Tether (USDT) against the Chinese yuan. The public nature of this announcement did bring questions to the fore regarding the use of payment channels like Alipay and WeChat for crypto trading. Alipay did, in fact, release statements distancing itself from cryptocurrency trading activities, with Binance later clarifying that it wasn’t working directly with the aforementioned payment services. Meanwhile the evolving narrative around the …
Alipay, the digital payment arm of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, has declared that it will be banning any transactions related to Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies. Combating illicit players On Oct. 10, Alipay reiterated its anti-crypto stance in a Twitter thread, which warned that the company is closely monitoring over-the-counter transactions to identify irregular behavior and ensure compliance with relevant regulations. Alipay wrote: “If any transactions are identified as being related to bitcoin or other virtual currencies, @Alipay immediately stops the relevant payment services.” This move follows various reports that Alipay is being used for BTC transactions. Binance uses Alipay …
In what is being considered a major step forward for Binance, CEO Changpeng Zhao (aka CZ) recently announced that his firm was all set to make its first strategic investment in China since leaving the Asian powerhouse back in 2017. At the time, the government had enforced a local crypto trading ban that resulted in a number of firms either shutting down completely or relocating to other, more hospitable destinations. In regard to this latest development, Binance — one of the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges — recently participated in a funding round estimated to be worth $200 million hosted by …
Electronics giant Samsung filed for a patent in May 2019 titled, “Programmable Blockchain Solid State Drive and Switch.” Even though few details are known about the newly designed system, a surge in patent applications filed by large corporations on blockchain is clearly visible. Related: Bank of America’s Blockchain Foray: Patent Trolling or Hedging Risks? Patent wars — i.e., battles between corporations or individuals to secure patents for litigation — are certainly not new. They have been widely practiced in the tech ecosystem since the times of Alexander Graham Bell at the turn of the 20th century, who was involved in …