Alibaba is indeed in a league of its own. The Ecommerce giant has completely reshaped the online marketplace in China and has now set its sights on a more ambitious takeover.
According to a few unconfirmed reports, the company could be gearing up to eventually launch a cryptocurrency mining platform.
In the translations of the disclosure, Alibaba had launched the “P2P Nodes” platform. This was effectively registered in October 2017. This lead to questions of whether Alibaba will incorporate this platform into its online commerce platform in the future.
Tencent News: Alibaba launching virtual currency mining platform "P2P Nodes", registered in Nanjing. May incorporate with e-commerce platform in future. (Unconfirmed)https://t.co/w0ZzgKk773
— cnLedger (@cnLedger) January 16, 2018
What Will “P2P Nodes” Be?
There is a great deal of speculation as to what P2P nodes could be but the most obvious speculation is that of a cloud mining operation. This will mean that Alibaba will be outsourcing the mining power on its platform to other miners.
This is even more surprising given the backdrop of the recent Chinese mining ban which has followed numerous other moves by the Chinese authorities to shut down all forms of cryptocurreny trading.
The CEO of Alibaba has himself also expressed uncertainty about the future of cryptocurrencies. He was quoted as saying that he was “totally confused” by the technology and that the world was not ready for it just yet.
However, like many other commentators around the world, he claimed that he could indeed see a great benefit in blockchain technology in the world.
Blockchain Gold rush
It also seems as if Alibaba may not be the only Chinese conglomerate that has its eyes on some sort of a blockchain solution. CN ledger was able to also locate a registration of a blockchain related trademark for “Ether Lock” or “Ethernet Lock”.
Chinese internet giant Tencent was found to have registered blockchain-related trademark "Ether Lock" https://t.co/fQKn0rHnMq
— cnLedger (@cnLedger) January 16, 2018
Of course, it can be quite hard to read into a company's intention by the mere registration of names. For example, last year there was great speculation that Amazon was about to enter the space when they registered crypto domain names.
As of this date, Amazon has still not implemented any crypto related business nor has confirmed any intention to. It could just be the companies securing lucrative trade and domain names for a possible launch at some time in the future.
However, the mere thought that a company as large as Alibaba or Tencent could enter the cryptocurrency space is enough to get any blockchain enthusiast excited.
Featured Image via Wikimedia Commons
