How China overtook the US in billionaires – Rupert Hoogewerf

 

Rupert Hoogewerf

China counts more than 1,000 billionaires in US dollar terms, overtaking solidly the US, according to the Hurun Rich List ranking. “We’re currently in the heart of a new industrial revolution, with new technologies including artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud, data and e-commerce creating new opportunities for entrepreneurs and leading to a concentration of wealth and economic power on a scale never seen before,” said Hurun Report Chairman and chief researcher Rupert Hoogewerf, according to Shine.

Shine:

China has the world’s most billionaires — more than the United States, India and Germany combined — due to a flurry of new initial public offerings and the booming digital economy over the past year despite the pandemic, according to the latest Hurun rankings.

The combined wealth of billionaires in China is US$4.5 trillion, up 73 percent from last year.

China currently has 1,058 billionaires, up 259 from a year ago and far surpassing America’s 696 billionaires.

According to the Hurun rankings, the number of billionaires in China began to overtake the US in 2016.

“We’re currently in the heart of a new industrial revolution, with new technologies including artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud, data and e-commerce creating new opportunities for entrepreneurs and leading to a concentration of wealth and economic power on a scale never seen before,” said Hurun Report Chairman and Chief researcher Rupert Hoogewerf. “Despite the disruption caused by COVID-19, this year has seen the biggest wealth increase in the last decade.”

China is the first country in the world to have more than 1,000 billionaires.

More in Shine.

Rupert Hoogewerf is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your (online) meeting or conference, do get in touch or fill in our speakers’ request form.

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How digital consumption will translate into 2021 – William Bao Bean

 

William Bao Bean

Shanghai-based VC-veteran William  Bao Bean prepares for a dynamic surge of digital consumption in 2021 after a booming 2020, he tells at the 10-year celebration of the Chinaccelerator. Keywords: virtual reality, blockchain and fintech.

The Chinaccelarator

In 2020, digital consumption surged like never before and 2021 will see companies build on that front. “We believe there will be an acceleration in online media and entertainment industry more engagingly and deeply where VR technology will play a critical role.”, says William Bao Bean. Alongside the acceleration of digital media consumption, William also believes that 2021 will see widespread adoption of collectible non-fungible tokens (NFTs), a concept very popular in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space. He adds, “crypto-fintech will accelerate the move from simply being traded on currency exchanges to widespread adoption of products, especially in the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) space.

More at the Chinaccelerator.

William Bao Bean is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers’ request form.

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Digital money, not crypto currencies will galore - Jim Rogers

Jim Rogers

While renowned investor Jim Rogers is a firm believer in the blockchain technology and is sure that China leads the way in digitizing money, he believes that governments will stick to their own currencies, rather than crypto ones, he says on his weblog.

Jim Rogers:

Paper money is going to disappear and it's going to be on the internet but this is going to be government money; it's not going to be anybody else's money. Money is already disappearing in China and in many countries. China's far ahead of the United States for instance. 

While I'm extremely optimistic about blockchain and I'm extremely optimistic about the changes of money to the internet which I know is happening it's not going to be cryptocurrencies because the governments are not going to let it happen.

More at Jim Rogers' weblog.

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China regulates, not bans, blockchain - Mark Schaub

Mark Schaub

China banned in September 2017 ICOs (Initial Coins Offerings) after some high-profile cases of fraud but certainly not block all blockchain activities. Lawyer Mark Schaub looks at the China Law Insight at how the government tries to regulate blockchain, one year after the initial ICO ban.

Mark Schaub:

The dilemma for government was clear. On the one hand blockchain is a revolutionary technology that will have a major impact on the global economy. On the other hand, regulation is critically important in order to protect consumers and investors. Over regulate and you may miss the boost to your economy that blockchain will deliver; fail to regulate and there will be major fall out from consumers and investors alike. 

Malta was the first jurisdiction to provide direct guidance as to the requirements for offering an ICO in early 2018. This guidance was followed up by a Virtual Financial Assets Act that was issued at the end of last year. These regulations provided certainty to both issuers and consumers in terms of what was expected in a coin/token offering. Since Malta, a number of other jurisdictions including Singapore, Hong Kong and Switzerland have released regulations or guidance on crypto-related projects. 

The utility tokens issued in an ICO do not easily fit within established asset classes. For this reason, ICOs were seen as an unregulated area of law. The utility token was not quite a security and more of a digital asset which may have certain rights. Further the utility token may have specific rights; unclearly defined rights or in many cases no rights attached. For this reason, traditional regulations do not neatly apply. In response, and indicative of the conservative approach of many, larger countries, the SEC in the United States of America determined that regardless of whether a token is labeled as a utility or not it could (and likely would) be classified as a security and be required to comply with US securities regulations. 

The importance of blockchain and cryptocurrencies means that governments faced with the dilemma of being hands off, regulating or prohibiting such activities do need to take decisions. As expected the common ground will be regulation. Blockchain and cryptocurrencies are too big for governments to ignore or treat in a laissez-faire manner. 

Equally blockchain and crypto-currencies are too big to just prohibit. Governments will not wish to impede the development of these new technologies. 

In our opinion reasonable regulation is healthy for a number of reasons. New regulations will provide legitimacy to the market. At its peak, the entire crypto market was still less than the market capitalization of the world’s most valuable companies and now sits at around USD 120 billion – or how much Facebook lost in market capitalization in one day, after announcing 2018 Q2 earnings. Accordingly, although too big to ignore, cryptocurrencies’ current importance can also be easily over estimated. A major factor holding back the growth of cryptocurrency is due to the lack of large financial institutions that can be actively involved due to the uncertainty in regulations and lack of risk mitigation tools. Regulation should enable cryptocurrencies to move beyond the scams of the past and evolve to help fund real world applications in sectors such as fintech, medical data, supply-chain management, etc. 

The PRC government’s move towards regulating rather than the outright ban of 4 September 2017 should be welcomed by the crypto-community and investors alike. The ideology that cryptocurrencies would be a completely free, decentralized and unregulated sector was never likely to survive interaction with government or investors. Regulations brings oversight, provides certainty and if done correctly should support the development of the sector.

More at the China Law Insight.

Mark Schaub is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more fintech experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

How startups, blockchain can prepare for the future - William Bao Bean

William Bao Bean (right)

William Bao Bean, managing director of the Chinaccelerator, the first and longest-running startup accelerator program in China, supported in 2017 160 investments in startups. The blockchain is becoming increasingly a feature larger companies need, and where startups can help, he says in this interview.

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Top-20 blockchain companies in China - Rupert Hoogewerf

Rupert Hoogewerf in Shenzhen

Over the weekend, the Hurun Report chairman Rupert Hoogewerf presented in Shenzhen his latest report, together with Xiha Finance, on the top-20 blockchain companies in China, with Waltonchain as the winner, according to the Medium.com.

Medium.com:

This is the first time in the history of the Hurun that blockchain technology has been embraced. As the starting point to enhance the value of the blockchain technology, blockchain projects have become the focus of this awards ceremony. Waltonchain, as the winner of the Hurun Blockchain Innovators 2018 award, was invited to attend the awards ceremony. 

More than 1,000 industry leaders from all over Asia gathered at the conference. These included blockchain practitioners, experts, investors and big names such as Huawei, Ant Financial and Xiaomi. The focus was on new trends and how to construct a brand-new blockchain ecosystem with a new mindset — thinking outside of the box. Some hot topics were innovative applications, future development trends and risks of blockchain. 

As the winner of the Hurun Blockchain Innovators 2018 award, Waltonchain was also invited to attend. Waltonchain CSO Welson Wong accepted the award on behalf of Waltonchain. It is a fact that, having its excellent technical strength, Waltonchain has already become a leader in the blockchain + IoT industry. 

At present, the blockchain industry is rife with chaos and hype. Fortunately there are projects that are consistently recognized for their solid foundations and what they have actually accomplished in the real world. The Hurun Blockchain Companies List focuses on the essence of “chains” and helps serve the real economy and energize the blockchain ecosystem. 

As a leader in blockchain + IoT, Waltonchain aims to promote the healthy development of blockchain technology and strives to build a brand-new business ecosystem.

More at the Medium.com.

Rupert Hoogewerf is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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Blockchain: key for cybersecurity at self-driving cars - Mark Schaub

Mark Schaub

Self-driving cars are going to change our life beyond recognition. But there is a lot of work to be done on cybersecurity to let them drive safely, says Shanghai-based lawyer Mark Schaub at the China Law Insight.  a sector in which major car manufacturers such as Audi, Daimler, Toyota, BMW, Nissan, Volvo rub shoulders with new electric vehicle manufacturers such as Tesla and are also vying with established tech giants such as Google, Baidu, Apple, Samsung, Tencent and competing with new tech such as ride-hailing companies such as Didi and Uber?

China Law Insight:

[T]he use of blockchain technology in autonomous cars will raise novel legal questions which are yet to be answered. One major legal issue will be assigning responsibility for glitches or other technical errors. As all distributed ledger technologies are decentralized there will be no single centralized body that maintains the network. 

In micro-payment situations the circumstance could arise where an autonomous vehicle charges its battery but is over- or under-charged for electricity. In this case it will be unclear whether the responsible party is the autonomous vehicle manufacturer or the charging station. Indeed, in situations where glitches occur due to errors in the distributed ledger technology itself, as opposed to participating people or devices, it is unclear whether the original developer itself may be liable. 

Another legal minefield for blockchain will be in respect of data privacy. Regulations may require drivers and/or passengers be given the option to customize which data is transmitted to the data marketplace and which is masked, particularly in case of shared autonomous vehicles which have large numbers of passengers who will have different privacy preferences. 

There is no doubt that blockchain and distributed ledger technologies have much to offer for the development of autonomous vehicles. Blockchain will enhance user experience, reduce inefficiencies in electricity transmission and reduce the high rate of private car ownership through promoting car sharing. 

Blockchain has the potential to fundamentally change:

• the way autonomous vehicle data is collected, stored and transacted, by incentivizing it, securing privacy and immutability,
• the way car sharing solutions are operating, by offering solutions for intermediary-free ride hailing, car sharing, carpooling, leasing services,
• the way payments and micro-transactions systems are designed, through usage of smart contracts and trustless transactions,
• will affect the way car insurance products are designed, allowing innovative insurance products, bringing, efficiency, transparency and speed into the car insurance process,
• the methods that information and history of a car is stored, enabling a transparent database that could give an elaborate account on any given car.

A wide range of blockchain and non-blockchain powered platforms, think tanks and research institutes have proposed platforms to address a number of needs in this space (a sample list is provided below). However, despite this rapid development, it must be remembered that there remain potential flaws with the underlying technology as well as unanswered legal issues regarding privacy and liability for technical errors. These issues will need to be addressed before the technology is implemented in a mass market manner.

More at the China Law Insight

Mark Schaub is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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