Silictec – The Unknown Giant Yet To Awake

NOTE: This is not financial advice. It is purely an observational piece on a few connections I didn’t realise existed.

While doing my due diligence on some cryptocurrencies I have my eye on, I came across a particularly interesting find in regard to China’s development of alliances in 2018.

In 2013, the founders of Alibaba (Jack Ma), Tencent (Pony Ma) and Ping An Insurance (Mingzhe Ma), dubbed ‘the three Ma’s’, created ZhongAn; China’s first online-only insurance company. ZhongAn has approximately 460m users and has issued over 5.8bn insurance policies since its inception, according to wikipedia.

In 2016, ZhongAn established a fintech subsidiary, ZhongAn Technology, which focuses on blockchain, AI, big data, and cloud computing research and development. ZhongAn Technology is wholly owned by ZhongAn, which has 3 of the biggest giants in China’s tech industry (the three Ma’s) as the biggest shareholders.

Now here is where things get interesting

Background info: Shenzhen is the ‘silicon valley’ of China. It is the place for tech companies. The linked video is by Bloomberg, released 23rd March 2019.

Director of Shenzhen Institute of Standards and Technology Mr. Zhou Wen, the elected Secretary General of SZBIA, along with the Director of the Shenzhen Fair Trade Promotion Department, Mr. Gao Zhan, unveiling the plaque to commemorate the formation of SZBIA.

Shenzhen Blockchain Industry Alliance is born, under the supervision of the provincial and central Government entities

In Nov 2018, an alliance was formed between some of the largest tech giants in China. The Shenzhen Blockchain Industry Alliance (SZBIA) was formed, and comprises 25 companies/entities, but notably the following 7 were voted/selected as Chairman Unit (1) and Vice Chairman Unit (4), and Secretary General Unit (2):

Tencent — creators of WeChat (China’s Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp/mobile payments system), Tencent Pictures (Terminator: Dark Fate, Wonder Woman, Bumblebee, Venom), Tencent Games (Call Of Duty, Fortnite, PUBG)

• Tencent was appointed the Chairman Unit of the Alliance
• Tencent Blockchain’s General Manager, Mr Cai Yige, was appointed the Chairman of the Alliance

ZhongAn Technology — subsidiary of ZhongAn, a company founded by Alibaba, Tencent and Ping An founders.

• ZhongAn Technology was appointed as 1 of 4 Vice Chairman Units.

CIMC Intelligence Technology — Technology research subsidiary of CIMC Group, a world leading supplier of logistics and energy equipment, partnered with Shell, China GAS, and Siemens, to name a few.

• CIMC Intelligence Technology appointed as 1 of 4 Vice Chairman Units.

Neusoft — China’s largest IT services provider

• Neusoft appointed as 1 of 4 Vice Chairman Units.

Silictec — Silicon chip manufacturer owned and run by Mo Bing, the CEO of the cryptocurrency Waltonchain; parent company of Citylink, one of the top 100 IoT companies in China; specialist manufacturer of silicon chips including RFIDs; holds over 60 patents.

• Silictec appointed as 1 of 4 Vice Chairman Units.

Shenzhen Institute of Standard and Technology — Provincial Government authorised and Central Government registered University.

• elected Secretary-General Unit

Citychain — Subsidiary of Silictec

• elected Secretary-General Unit

Source: 1, 2, 3

This industry alliance is extremely significant for blockchain development in China for obvious reasons. It consists of companies either owned or created by the three Ma’s.

One could compare the alliance to the equivalent of Apple, Tesla, Lenovo, Warner Brothers, Bank of America, and Harvard University forming a blockchain alliance under the direct supervision of the US Government with specific instruction to do so from the POTUS. If any blockchain company with a cryptocurrency was involved in this, that crypto ticker would undoubtedly be in every single bitcoin maximalists blockfolio at the very least.

Subsequent to the above release, some of the entities that are part of SZBIA have also been reported to be associated with forming the national blockchain standards in China.

On April 3rd 2019, Tencent, ZhongAn and Silictec were part of the first conference for the National Standards for Information Technology Blockchain and Distributed Accounting Technology Reference Framework. In total, only 1 of the 36 entities that are taking part in setting national standards is associated with a cryptocurrency project; Silictec (or Silike as it translates to), which is a subsidiary of Waltonchain. Other participants included WeBank, Ant Financial, and State Grid Corporation of China, to name but a few. (Note: an initial meeting took place in August 2018 which also had the CTO of Matrix AI Network present — a blockchain project with a confirmed partnership with One Belt One Road Research Centre.)

Source 1

Image from Cointelegraph’s article, titled ‘Chinese Gov’t Partners With Tencent on New Blockchain Security Alliance’ — https://cointelegraph.com/news/chinese-gov-t-partners-with-tencent-on-new-blockchain-security-alliance

Chinese Government Partners with Tencent on Blockchain Security Alliance

Rewind back a few months to June 20th 2018 when it was reported that Tencent’s security arm, Tencent Security, partnered with government entities to form the China blockchain Security Alliance at a conference in Beijing. This was a very big deal. Interesting to note that Silictec is also part of the alliance, and in fact the Vice Chairman of Silictec, Professor Wei Songjie (whom is also the CTO of the cryptocurrency Waltonchain), gave a speech on ‘Blockchain-based Reinforcement for Data Security In Internet of Things’ at the conference. Other speeches were given by Vice President of Tencent, Mr Ma Bin, and the founder of Knownsec, Mr Zhao Wei.

Prof. Wei Songjie giving his speech at the China Blockchain Security Alliance conference

Other notable mentions about the conference:

• This was the first China Blockchain Security Summit Forum
• Organised by Knownsec — a Chinese security firm that has audited code for High Performance Blockchain $HBP, Nano $NAS and Waltonchain $WTC, as well as over 100 other blockchain enterprises since 2011.
• Conference was hosted by the Government backed ‘China Technology Marketing Association’
• China Blockchain Research Centre was also present.
• No other cryptocurrency aside from Waltonchain was represented.

Source 1 2

CTO Prof. Wei Songjie’s interview Jinse Finance

https://youtu.be/HVG27Nv7zPo

So to summarise, we have seen that Tencent, ZhongAn (and by association, Alibaba & Ping An) and Silictec (and by association, Waltonchain) are undeniably interconnected with China’s blockchain goals. The silicon valley of China is pushing forward to promote, prioritise and prevail at making an impact in China’s global economic strategy through the use of blockchain technology.

Alliances to keep an eye on:

• The Shenzhen Blockchain Industry Alliance
• China blockchain Security Alliance

Now you might be asking what makes me so bullish on blockchain in China? Well, after reading the above you’ll have figured out that China has been setting wheels in motion for a while now, faster than the majority of the world. President Xi in particular is fully supportive blockchain, IoT and AI research and development, which in turn has lead to the entire country working toward a common goal; to become the absolute leader in blockchain and all associated future-technologies associated with it.

It is my opinion that the Chinese market — particularly given the current political situation around Huawei — is not only going to surpass every other country in the world in implementation of IoT and blockchain technologies, but will work to accelerate their already established economic independence whilst working in synergy with the countries that will support them to reach their goal, for a win-win scenario.

For those of us in crypto, it is often difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, so my only advice today is to do your own research and look at the moves being made by the companies that count, without listening to the people that do not. Will Tencent, Alibaba, or Ping An launch a cryptocurrency you can invest in? Probably not. Is there a cryptocurrency that has connections with them that you can invest in? Well, the evidence we have seen certainly suggests so.

Note: I believe all my research here to be factually correct, and my opinions formed within this article are my own. If you see any errors, please message me so I can correct them.

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Thanks for reading :)

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