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Blockchain, the technology behind Bitcoin’s public ledger, is one of the hottest topics in fintech, and one of the technology’s biggest fans are banks.

“You see these banks that really get excited about blockchain and fintech,” says Zennon Kapron, the founder of Kapronasia, a research and consulting firm that focuses on Asia’s financial industry.

“At some point over the next year, banks are going to wake up and realize that blockchain is a great, sexy technology for a problem that doesn’t exist,” he says.

At TechCrunch Shanghai on Monday, Mr. Kapron and Bobby Lee, the founder of BTCC, one of China’s first bitcoin exchanges, discussed the future of Bitcoin and blockchain technology. According to a report by KPMG and CB Insights,  venture capital investments in Bitcoin and blockchain-related startups rose from $3 million in 2011 to $474 million in 2015. Though blockchain technology was originally developed for Bitcoin, the technology is applicable to other assets as well, from diamonds to stocks.

For banks, blockchain technology has the potential to speed up transaction times, minimize fraud, boost security and transparency, and slash costs. It’s also less risky than adopting a cryptocurrency and betting on the value of Bitcoin. However, so far, blockchain technology has not been widely adopted outside of Bitcoin.

“For there to be a good and suitable blockchain for companies, banks, [and] financial institutions to use, there has to be a very good blockchain that is immutable, global, open source, [and] public,” says Mr. Lee. “Today, there is only one such ledger – it’s called the Bitcoin blockchain.”

One of the core strengths of blockchain technology is the distributed and decentralized nature of its record-keeping. A blockchain is made up of a network of computers or “blocks”, each containing a copy of the whole ledger. Thus, safeguarding against unscrupulous attempts to rewrite or alter parts of the ledger depends on how large and distributed the blockchain is. For banks or startups that want to create smaller or private blockchains, many of the benefits of the technology could be lost.

“A lot of the things that blockchain was designed to solve, those aren’t benefits of these smaller, private blockchains,” he says. “If you have five banks using one blockchain…how secure is that blockchain? How much do you trust those other players that are there?”

The enthusiasm behind blockchain technology from financial institutions is part of a rising interest in fintech in general, as banks grapple with disruptive fintech startups in mobile payments, P2P lending, and more. Many banks, such as Standard Chartered, have taken the approach of partnering or investing in fintech startups, many of which target financial institutions as their customers and clients, not necessarily their competitors.

However, financial regulations and policies will shape and can make-or-break the future of many fintech applications, such as Bitcoin. At the end of 2013, the Chinese government cracked down on Bitcoin, prohibiting banks and payment companies from dealing with the cryptocurrency. Still, the regulations left room for optimism as individuals were still allowed to sell and and buy Bitcoins. As regulations around blockchain continue to develop, how banks and startups will implement blockchain for their own purposes remains to be seen.

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The ‘quantified self’ movement might still have a future, despite the tanking wearables market. Digitizing our health and monitoring our bodies could well be the future of healthcare.

“We can take all the DNA in our body and turn it into letters on a hard drive,” says Jimmy Lin, the Chief Scientific Officer for Oncology at Natera, a genetic testing company. “So that actually makes it a data problem. That’s really exciting.”

“It’s no longer that we [will] see a doctor once a year or only when we’re sick,” he says. “[There are] possibilities for us to have constant monitoring of our health, 24/7. That sort of rethinks how healthcare can be provided.”

On Wednesday at SparkLabs’ Demo Day in Seoul, Dr. Lin and Laurent De Vitton, the co-founder of  Apricot Forest (杏树林), a healthcare startup based in Beijing, highlighted opportunities and challenges for startups eyeing the healthcare industry, which is in many ways one of the final frontiers for consumer technology.

“I think the ecosystem is very, very young,” said Mr. Lin. “Even if you look at all the excitement of the Apple Watch, or ways that people can use a cellphone, it’s still not much more advanced than a pedometer.”

The smartphone has revolutionized a multitude of industries, especially consumer-facing verticals, such as virtual reality, e-commerce, and social media. Smartphone applications in the healthcare industry, however, are much more niche, like smartphone microscopy, which can help doctors without access to expensive medical devices detect diseases like skin cancer or malaria. In addition, despite the wealth of technological advances in healthcare – gene editing, robotic surgeons, in-body sensors – the experience of end users, or patients, still falls short compared to other consumer products.

“Individuals in the West, but also Asia, understand less and less why their shopping experience [has] been so revolutionized by the smartphone, why their entertainment life has been so deeply transformed, [but] why their health is barely impacted as far as their personal experience goes,” says Mr. De Vitton.

Improving user experiences in the healthcare industry is a huge opportunity for startups. In China, for example, overextended doctors juggle excruciating caseloads, sometimes seeing fifty patients a day, averaging to about less than five minutes per patient, says Mr. De Vitton. Lowering the rate of misdiagnosis and improving patient service can come from simple solutions, like Apricot Forest’s suite of apps, which digitizes patient case files and enables doctors to crowdsource solutions and diagnoses from other doctors.

Big data also opens a lot of doors for healthcare startups. From medical records to genomic data, the healthcare industry will need products and services to sift through and make sense of vast amounts of data.

“Until we’re able to derive value from big data, it’s just a bunch of data. That’s where a lot of opportunities exist for startups,” says Mr. Lin. “From taking the data that’s from your DNA to a file, to ultimately an action that a physician can then recommend you to do, all those steps are potential… companies, [and problems] that startups can be able to address.”

In China, where an alarming number of doctors are physically assaulted by their patients, disruption of the country’s healthcare system is badly needed. According to a report by the Chinese Medical Doctor Association in 2015, almost 60% of medical staff reported verbal abuse from patients and more than 13% said they had been assaulted.

The country’s healthcare system also suffers from a lack of trust, which is further entrenched by medical scandals, such as the 21-year old student who died in May after undergoing experimental treatment advertised on Baidu.

Image credit: Shutterstock

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After flying to Hong Kong for RISE, we spoke with Nick Ramil from Brinc.io, an Internet-of-Things hardware accelerator in Hong Kong. In this episode, Nick explains the ins and outs of Brinc and Hong Kong’s startup ecosystem. (comment: China Business Cast’s original description was this:

“RISE conference ended a few weeks ago. I (Shlomo) flew to Hong Kong to the conference and met Mike as well. It was a good chance to do our very first in person episode recording. This one is with Nick Ramil from Brinc.io accelerator.  We went to their cool space and managed to find the time to talk right before continuing to the next drinking event. Enjoy!”)

Download MP3 (6.4 MB) or Subscribe via iTunes

The goal of China Business Cast is to help entrepreneurs who want to learn how to do business in China. The podcast features conversations with experienced entrepreneurs and business people who’ve built their businesses in China.  We’re here to dig into the details so you can learn from real, on-the-ground accounts of how business actually gets done.

TechNode does not endorse any commentary made in the program.

Notes:

• Nick Ramil intro: What does Brinc do and how is Nick involved?
• Nick is the founder of The Elevator Life and entered China’s community dealing mostly with sourcing and manufacturing. Then he moved more on to the digital world, launching products on Kickstarter before building Brinc. How was the transition into Brinc ?
• How is it working with other startups?
• What are some of the biggest challenges / mistakes you see these startups make?
• What kind of products Brinc.io is dealing with?
• And what kind does Brinc prefer not to deal with? Any specific stages?
• Why choose Hong Kong as your hub versus other places in Asia?
• What is the most exciting product that Brinc has launched so far?
• How does Brinc evaluate startups and what is the process that they have to go through?
• How does the program work (for those interested in applying)?
• What’s the best way to reach out and find out more info ?

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Tujia.com, which is often dubbed the AirBNB of China, has completed a total acquisition of younger rival Mayi.com, announced Tujia on Thursday.

Neither company has released details on how much the deal was worth, or how Mayi will be restructured under Tujia.

One interesting side-effect of the deal is that 58.com, the country’s biggest classifieds platform, will now own a partial stake in Tujia. 58.com previously held a controlling stake in Mayi.com.

58.com has gone on an investment rampage since their 2013 IPO. The company invested 1.7 billion USD in 14 companies within 18 months of their listing, including a $412 million USD stake in leading autos platform Ganji.com and the $267 million USD acquisition of major real estate listing platform Anjuke.

Tencent owns a 25 percent stake in 58.com. Tujia also counts Ctrip, one of China’s leading travel platforms, among their core investors, as well as Homeaway.com, the U.S. vacation rental platform.

It’s the latest in a continuing spate of consolidations among Chinese tech startups, particularly in the on-demand and O2O sectors. Sluggish economic growth and a more risk-averse investment environment has seen companies come under pressure to consolidate their position in the market.

Unlike the country’s ride-hailing sector, which has largely devolved into a battle between Uber and Didi Chuxing, China still has a number of competitive players in the short-term rental market, meaning that further consolidations could be on the horizon.

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President Obama and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg have already read the book, but they will have to wait until next year to catch the motion picture adaptation of The Three Body Problem (三体), one of China’s most hotly anticipated films.

As a book, the sci-fi story took China by storm with its depiction of a surreal virtual reality world mixed in with the brutalities of the Cultural Revolution. The highly original story even saw Liu Cixin become the first Asian author to win the Hugo Award.

The success of the story soon prompted Liu to adapt it into not just a film, but also a video game, with Liu becoming both “Art Director of the movie and Cloud Architect of the game,” according to a press release in December.

That same announcement said the film would be released in July 2016. But with only a couple of weeks to go, there has yet to be a trailer or any other sign the film will make a deadline that many local sci-fi fans and industry insiders doubted it ever would.

Since shooting wrapped up in August 2015, the film’s post-production process has been less than smooth, with high-level personnel changes and a wholesale replacement of the CGI team, according to several local media reports and social media updates from key players.

While the details are still murky, and contradictory behind-the-scenes accounts play out in the media, there have been enough problems to prompt author Liu Cixin to tell local media the film’s release has beenpostponed till 2017.

After initial local trade press reports of the resignation of Kong Ergou, CEO of Yoozoo Pictures and executive producer on the film, the executive took to social media to deny the charge and clear up the reasons for the delay.

Kong confirmed the delay, but said it was because the post-production budget had increased and they had higher standards for the CGI.

“As the first sci-fi in China, we want to do our best to achieve the best possible visual effects,” he wrote.

Sci-fi, though increasingly popular in China, is seen only in films, television and Internet entertainment imported from overseas. China’s strict censorship of homegrown content leaves little room for plot points not grounded in fact.

Kong said that he had switched from CEO to executive director a year earlier but he also took the opportunity to promote a new company he had created called “Rexue Yoozoo” (热血游族). It’s unclear whether the new company is related to Yoozoo Pictures.

China Film Insider repeatedly contacted Yoozoo Pictures to confirm Kong’s version of events, but the company’s representatives did not reply.

An employee at one of the visual effects companies connected to the film told China Film Insider that the delay in the film’s release was due to a disagreement over funds between director Zhang Fanfan and his producers.

Given the global success of the book, hopes are high that the sci-fi story will become a rare thing in the Chinese film industry—a breakout movie with worldwide appeal.

But such a result is unlikely for a Chinese sci-fi film if the special effects aren’t up to a global standard.

“We hope the movie will trigger a huge transformation in the whole Chinese movie market,” Lin QI, CEO of Yoozoo Pictures, said in November. “The entire movie is expected to contain more than 1,700 special effect shots.”

On June 17, Yoozoo Pictures released a statement via the official The Three Body Problem Weibo account which said the new CGI team was made up of top American, Korean, German, and Chinese teams working in tandem, including the high-profile visual effect company Pixomondo.

Some reports claim the film’s marketing department has been slashed as a result of the delay. While the film scrambles to get its visual effects right, gripes from anonymous insiders continue to leak out into the press.

“We originally planned to jointly market The Three Body Problem with 20th  Century Fox’s Independence Day: Resurgence,” one insider said in a social media post that later was deleted. “The film will hit the screen for sure, but now we just don’t know when exactly.”

This article originally appeared on China Film Insider

About the Author: Fergus Ryan is a reporter at China Film Insider and previously worked  as a journalist for the News Corp. publications China Spectator and The Australian

Image credit: (Anne Petersen—Flickr/Creative Commons)

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Following a series of leaked rumors, Chinese tech giant Tencent officially announced the purchase of a majority stake in Supercell, the Finnish gaming company behind the hit game Clash of Clans. The deal will buy a 84.3% stake in the company for $8.6 billion USD from Japanese firm SoftBank Group Corp.

The deal values Supercell at $10.2 billion USD, almost double its valuation a year ago. When SoftBank bought a 51% stake in 2013, the Finnish company was valued at a mere $1.53 billion USD.

“We have agreed with Tencent that Supercell will continue to be operationally independent, exactly as it was under SoftBank’s ownership,” wrote Ilkka Paananen, CEO of Supercell, in a post on the company’s blog.

“Our headquarters will stay in Helsinki and we will pay our taxes in Finland. All of this is very important for us,” Paananen added.

Tencent’s partnership will offer Supercell access to Tencent’s gaming platforms, such as QQ Games, as well as access to some of Tencent’s other game-related purchases, most notably Riot Games. In turn, the tech giant will grow its mobile gaming business. Gaming is a core part of Tencent’s revenue, making up more than half of the company’s overall revenue in Q1 2016. Tencent’s gaming business model is based off of various value-added services, including the purchase of digital weapons, as well as VIP memberships.

In China’s heavily monopolized mobile gaming industry, Tencent is one of the top players, in addition to iDreamSky and NetEase. As of April 2016, the tech giant occupied almost half of the top 20 titles for Android mobile games in China, with games like King of Glory, Crossfire, and We MOBA. In addition to mobile games, the tech giant will continue to diversify its gaming portfolio through its pan-entertainment strategy, which it announced during last year’s ChinaJoy tradeshow.

Image credit: Supercell

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Chinese tech companies are scrambling to take a piece of the hotly-contended VR market. The local VR industry is expected to reach 5.6 billion yuan ($850 million USD) in 2016, and exceed 55 billion yuan by 2020, up from 1.5 billion yuan in 2015, according to data from Chinese research institute iiMedia.

With the steep market projection in mind, TechNode gathered together a few frontrunners  in the VR headset game so far:

HTC Vive

HTC Vive is a tethered, PC-based VR headset package that includes a headset, two motion controllers, and two base stations. The device provides immersive VR experiences thanks to superb resolution and easy operation. The device still has room for improvement. The system is comparatively complex and requires a large playing space. Still, retailing at $799, this is one of the most promising VR devices we’ve seen.

Baofeng Magic Glass

Part of their VR video endeavor, Baofeng’s Magic Glass is a smartphone headset that is compatible with Bluetooth-connected controllers. Although the 199 yuan device does not boast any ground-breaking features, its dedicated app platform claimed over 70 games and over 1800 video resources.

LeEco Super Helmet 3D VR Head-Mounted Glasses

LeEco is a leading Chinese internet giant which has ventured into the VR industry. The company recently released the Super Helmet, featuring a 5.5 inch Sharp liquid crystal panel with a 2560 x 1440 resolution and a 70 degree horizontal view.

One highlight of the device is that the users can adjust the lens, a plus for shortsighted people who want to try it out. The device also has some shortcomings. The gadget does not have an embedded battery, and must be connected to a smartphone or battery bank for power supply.

LeEco also released a low-end smartphone headset dubbed LeTV Cool 1 last year.

DeePoon M2

DeePoon M2 is an all-in-one VR headset. Unlike smartphone and PC-tethered headsets, this device basically runs as a powerful smartphone and offers everything you need in a basic VR experience. However, it doesn’t have all the features you get with a PC-based system, such as motion tracking.

DeePoon is a Chinese consumer-targeted VR manufacturer that offers a full array of VR devices, ranging from VR googles that link to smartphones to all-in-one VR handsets with built-in motherboards and displays. The company raised $30 million USD B round earlier this year.

Join us at TechCrunch VR/AR Summit on June 29 to learn more about China’s VR industry.

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Shanghai could be the production hub for a $9 billion USD Tesla hub, according to sources who spoke to Bloomberg.

A company owned by the Shanghai government, Jinqiao Group, has reportedly signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with the U.S.-based electric vehicle maker, said the source.

The deal would involve an investment of 30 billion yuan ($4.5 billion USD) from both Tesla and Jinqiao, totaling $9 billion USD. A majority of Jinqiao’s investment would be in securing the land for the facility, according to the report.

Jinqiao’s listed entity, Shanghai Jinqiao Processing Zone Development Co., saw their stock jump almost 10 percent following the news, before trading was suspended.

Tesla released their Model X for distribution in China just last week. The country hasn’t been an easy market for Tesla, though it’s expected to be the largest global market for connected, autonomous and electric vehicles. Several home-grown competitors have inched into the space, including NextEV and internet company LeEco, which is backing Faraday Future.

Bloomberg’s source claims that several cities are vying to partner with Tesla on the project, including Suzhou in Jinagsu province and Hefei in Anhui province. Recently Baidu announced that they would be testing their autonomous vehicles in Anhui province, due to the varied landscapes and favorable government conditions.

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The time has come for our annual TechCrunch Shanghai event, and it’s shaping up to be bigger than ever.

Join us from June 25th to the 29th at the West Bund Art Center for the Chinese tech industry’s top international conference, where we will bring together speakers from the country’s biggest tech companies and startups to discuss what the future of Chinese technology will look like.

TechCrunch China has made some impressive advances over the past three years. The event attracted over 3,000 attendees at TechCrunch Shanghai in 2013, rising to over 6,000 at TechCrunch Beijing in 2015.

In 2016, TechCrunch China is unstoppable as one of the top industry events in the Chinese tech ecosystem, and this year – for the first time, TechCrunch Shanghai will be held over five days.

On June 25th, hundreds of programmers, developers and business minds will join us to kick off the TechCrunch Shanghai Hackathon, a 24 hour intensive brainstorming event designed to bring out some of the best in Chinese tech innovation.

From the June 27th to the 28th, international entrepreneurs, VCs, startups and other industry professionals will take the stage for two days of cutting edge talks and panels covering the hottest topics in technology today, including internet finance and artificial intelligence. There will be also a sub-venue focusing on Fintech.

At the same time, TechCrunch Shanghai will feature a VC Meetup, giving attendees the chance to pitch product face-to-face with more than 100 of China’s top angel investors and venture capitalists. This year, TechNode will help more than 1,000 entrepreneurs talk to VCs through intensive ten minute sessions.

Some of the country’s best young startups will also have a chance to show off their product in our Startup Alley, with more than 250 startups expected to take the floor over two days. Our Alley startups, hailing from different regions and countries, will have a chance to present themselves to top-level domestic and foreign venture capitals and media.

On June 29th, TechCrunch China will hold our first-ever Asian virtual reality and augmented reality summit in collaboration with Formation Group, all the way from Silicon Valley. We’ll also invite industry-leading entrepreneurs and top Chinese device companies and content producers, including Oculus, HTC, Samsung, and NextVR. Participants will exhibit their latest products and discuss the hottest trends in VR and AR hardware, content, and capital.

At TechCrunch Shanghai 2016, you can expect to experience a range of Chinese innovation and entrepreneurialism with unprecedented scope at one incredible event, so join us from the 25th to the 29th of June to get a true glimpse of our future!

To sign up for TechCrunch 2016 Shanghai, please click here.

For Startup Alley booth registrations, please click here.

For further information on planning events with Technode, please email event@technode.com.

Image Credit: TechNode

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WeChat is commonly referred to as a messaging service by foreign media, but Chinese users know that the massively popular app, which recorded over 697 million monthly active users as of 2015, is far more than just an IM tool.

Tencent, the parent company of WeChat, rarely gives many insights into the wealth of data behind China’s most popular messaging app. Today they released a report giving a handful of insights, along with an imagined day in the life of a WeChat-obsessed user:

• 7:00 Get up — Browse WeChat Moment
• 7:45 Head towards the office — Read two articles or playing games on WeChat while commuting
• 8:30 Arrive at the office — Buy breakfast with WeChat Payments.
• 9:00 Start work — Handling messages from WeChat group for work
• 10:00 Break — Browse WeChat Moments (similar to a Facebook feed) and chat with friends
• 12:00 Lunch —Pay for meals through WeChat payment
• 12:45 Afternoon Break— Shopping on JD, which has level-one access on WeChat, and chat with friends
• 17:00 Head home — Browse WeChat Moments
• 18:00 Shop on the way home — Buy groceries with WeChat Payment
• 20:00 Leisure hour — Read posts on WeChat, shop on JD, chat with friends
• 22:00 Go to bed — Chat with friends and grab an red envelope, a lucky money giving feature.

According to the report, WeChat users are most active around 22:00, a bit earlier than last’s year’s 22:30. WeChat users made a combined 280 million minutes worth of calls per day using the video and voice calling functions, the data shows.

Some 60% of WeChat users are young people aged between 15 and 29. On average, they have 128 friends, which will increase by 20% after getting first job. The demographic accounts for 58% of cross-regional calls and their peak-shopping period occurs between 10am and 10pm.

There’s also a gender imbalance in consumption behaviors of WeChat users, but the trend tilts towards male customers, rather than female spenders. The report shows male WeChatters spend 30% more than their female counterparts.

In terms of reading habits, post-90s users have an appetite for entertainment news, while post-80’s gen prefers international and local politics, and the post-60s generation preferred what Tencent dubbed “鸡汤文化,” meaning ‘chicken soup for the soul’ articles.

In terms of regional distribution, WeChat users are still skewed toward larger cities. Their penetration rate in first and second-tier cities stands at 93 percent and 69 percent respectively. The app still only has a 50 percent penetration rate in third to fifth-tier cities, according to Tencent.

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