Stablecoins are becoming a strategic new track for major economies worldwide, with the United States, the European Union, Hong Kong, and others competing to introduce regulatory frameworks in an attempt to seize the initiative. However, the issuance of any stablecoin relies on a key underlying infrastructure—public chains.
In this context, the industry viewpoint that "China currently has no globally influential public chain and should be led by central enterprises and state-owned enterprises" has sparked heated discussions. This viewpoint is not baseless, but it also easily overlooks a fact: since blockchain was elevated to a national strategic height in 2016, a blockchain infrastructure network led by the "national team" and aimed at serving the real economy has already taken shape.
From the global connector BSN, the industrial foundation "Xinghuo·Chain Network," to the technical cornerstone "Chang'an Chain," and the public chain "exception" Shutu Chain (Conflux), they collectively form China's unique blockchain landscape. As the demand for stablecoins becomes increasingly urgent, which of these networks is most likely to break through and become the trusted foundation for China's stablecoin vision and aimed at the global market?
To accurately understand China's strategic intentions, it is necessary to redefine the term "public chain" in the Chinese context. Directly equating it with permissionless chains will lead to serious conceptual deviations. In China, the "public chains" promoted at the national level are essentially closer to a "public infrastructure" or "trust infrastructure" that is guided by the state, allows multiple parties to participate, but is ultimately controllable.
Among them, the most influential currently in the industry are the Blockchain Service Network (BSN), Xinghuo·Chain Network, "Chang'an Chain," and the recently discussed public chain Conflux, etc. PANews conducted a review and analysis of these blockchain networks to see who is more likely to become the foundation for China's stablecoins.
In 2018, BSN was jointly initiated by the National Information Center, China Mobile, China UnionPay, Beijing Hongzao Technology, and other units, and it is a public infrastructure for blockchain. It currently consists of BSN dedicated networks and BSN public networks, among which the BSN dedicated network mainly serves enterprises, primarily through the "BSN Distributed Cloud Management Platform," supporting deployment in various physical IDC data centers, public clouds, and private clouds, establishing a distributed cloud system environment based on blockchain.
The BSN public network is more inclined towards the concepts of public chains and alliance chains that we are familiar with. In the BSN public network system, there are BSN-DDC basic network (an open alliance chain targeting China) and BSN Spartan network (a public distributed cloud service network composed of non-token public chains), aimed at overseas markets.
Currently, within the DDC network system, there are multiple open alliance chains including Yan'an Chain, Wenchang Chain, Tai'an Chain, Wuhan Chain, and China Mobile Chain. These networks utilize frameworks such as Ethereum, EOS, FISCO BCOS, and Corda, with main application scenarios including NFTs (digital collectibles), distributed domain names, distributed identities (DID), and trusted data certification. The DDC network system is an alliance chain system without token design, and on-chain service fees need to be recharged through fiat currency, targeted at the domestic market.
The consensus mechanism of the BSN Spartan network is more inclined towards public chains like Ethereum, but the difference is that it is a non-token public chain. Currently, BSN Spartan consists of three sub-chains based on Ethereum, Cosmos, and PolygonEdge. As of August 4, the daily transaction volumes of these three chains were 1,068, 844, and 938 respectively.
Overall, the core innovation of BSN lies in multi-framework adaptation, unifying the adaptation and management capabilities of dozens of mainstream blockchain underlying frameworks (including alliance chains and public chains) globally. Through a standardized adaptation mechanism, developers can 'plug and play' to choose different underlying chains without worrying about the complex deployment and operation details, akin to a universal 'operating system' for the blockchain world. However, the increasing demand for stablecoins and BSN's current lack of an open Token mechanism may become a constraint. He Yifan, the CEO of Hongzao Technology and an executive director of the BSN Development Alliance, has previously expressed strong aversion to virtual currencies, believing that virtual currencies are a huge Ponzi scheme.
According to the official introduction, "Xinghuo·Chain Network" is a national-level blockchain new integrated infrastructure system constructed under the leadership and special support of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, led by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, in collaboration with several large enterprises and institutions such as Beihang University, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, and China Unicom.
From an architectural perspective, "Xinghuo·Chain Network" is divided into two layers. The first layer consists of the main chain formed by super nodes, used to manage identifiers, public data, or other legal assets and supervision provided by the state in the future. The second layer is a sub-chain linked by backbone nodes, connecting various applications in industry or regions.
It is worth noting that "Xinghuo·Chain Network" is a permissioned public blockchain network, and from the current information, it also does not have a token design. Similarly, "Xinghuo·Chain Network" is divided into the domestic network's mainnet and the international version ASTRON network. Currently, the established super nodes of "Xinghuo·Chain Network" include Xiamen and Liuzhou; backbone nodes include Jiaozhou, Hengqin, and Suzhou; international nodes include Malaysia and Macau. The entry threshold for nodes in "Xinghuo·Chain Network" is relatively high and requires local government promotion for construction.
"Xinghuo·Chain Network" focuses its application scenarios highly on the industrial sector, including: traceability of high-end manufacturing products throughout their entire lifecycle, collaborative management of complex supply chains, digital identity authentication and predictive maintenance of industrial equipment, and trusted sharing and trading of industrial data.
"Chang'an Chain" is led by the Chang'an Chain Ecological Alliance, which was initiated by the Beijing Microchip Blockchain and Edge Computing Research Institute (referred to as "Microchip Institute") under the guidance and support of the Beijing Municipal Government.
The Chang'an Chain ecological alliance includes key state-owned enterprises in critical fields such as State Grid, China Construction Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Unicom, COFCO Group, as well as internet giants like Tencent and Baidu. Currently, the number of alliance members has exceeded 50.
In November 2021, "Chang'an Chain" was included in the "14th Five-Year" International Science and Technology Innovation Construction Plan of Beijing. In January 2022, "Chang'an Chain" was included in the Beijing government work report. In 2025, the "Beijing Blockchain Innovation Application Development Action Plan (2025-2027)" once again mentioned "Chang'an Chain."
In addition to its strong background, the technical advantages of "Chang'an Chain" are also quite apparent. The official claim states that its transaction throughput capacity (TPS) can reach up to 100,000 levels, which can meet the high concurrency needs of large-scale financial and government scenarios.
Unlike the aforementioned blockchain networks with obvious alliance chain characteristics, Shutu Chain is currently the only public chain in mainland China that meets regulatory requirements. Shutu Chain was founded in 2018 by Long Fan, a graduate of the "Yao Class" and a Ph.D. from MIT, with Academician Yao Qizhi serving as chief scientist and participating in the theoretical design of core algorithms. In January 2020, the Conflux team officially established the Shanghai Shutu Blockchain Research Institute in Shanghai. In October of the same year, the Conflux Shutu Blockchain mainnet was officially launched.
As a complete public chain, Shutu Chain also has a governance token CFX. Despite strict regulatory policies on cryptocurrencies in mainland China, Conflux successfully issued and operates its token CFX, making it a unique "exception."
CFX, as a global cryptocurrency asset, has been listed on several mainstream cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance, OKX, and Gate.io. Its market price and market capitalization are influenced by various factors including technological progress, ecosystem development, and macro market environment. For example, recent positive news about the Conflux 3.0 upgrade and support for offshore RMB stablecoin plans has led to a significant short-term increase in its token price.
Moreover, the endorsements for Shutu Chain should not be underestimated. Shutu Chain has been reported multiple times by mainstream official media such as People’s Daily and has deep cooperation with several central enterprises such as China Telecom and China Mobile. Additionally, Shutu Chain is collaborating with financial technology company AnchorX to explore the issuance of a stablecoin anchored to offshore RMB (AxCNH) to support cross-border payment needs of countries along the Belt and Road.
In addition to the aforementioned blockchain networks with strong endorsements, there are several alliance chains in China such as State Grid Chain (State Grid), Unicom Chain (China Unicom), China Mobile Chain (China Mobile), ICBC Chain (Industrial and Commercial Bank of China), Ant Chain (Ant Group), Zhixin Chain (Tencent), and Zhongxiang Chain Network. Most of these alliance chains are also initiated by state-owned enterprises or technology giants. They have unique advantages and influence within their respective fields.
But returning to the original question, does China have a public chain with international influence? The current answer should be in the negative. The main reason is that most of China’s blockchain networks are alliance chains, which differ significantly from overseas public chains like Ethereum and Solana in consensus mechanisms and economic models.
Among the existing public chain infrastructures, "Shutu Chain" is most likely to grow into an internationally recognized domestic public chain. From a technical perspective, "Shutu Chain" has characteristics of internationally accepted public chains, as well as originality and performance advantages in technology. Its official background and clear exploration plan for offshore RMB stablecoins give it a first-mover advantage in the stablecoin race.
Among other blockchain networks, "Chang'an Chain" also has the potential to become the underlying architecture for stablecoin issuance. In 2021, its research and development institution, Microchip Institute, signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the central bank's research institute to jointly promote enterprise-level applications of digital RMB based on "Chang'an Chain." In addition, the technical characteristics of "Chang'an Chain" can also support token design, meeting the technical requirements for stablecoin issuance. Its strong central enterprise ecosystem gives it a natural advantage in promoting stablecoin applications between institutions or in specific scenarios.
Of course, in addition to this, as listed companies in multiple countries in Europe and America begin to use cryptocurrencies as treasury assets and participate in the governance of public chains, China's public chain journey may also have a third option, which is to participate in the governance of international mainstream public chains. After all, in a decentralized world, the distinction of national borders is often merely a percentage difference in computing power.
