By William Suberg
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has launched a surprise cryptocurrency mining platform, unconfirmed sources surfacing today claim.
CnLedger, a Twitter-based local crypto news information provider, relayed the report from Chinese Internet service qq.com, stating Alibaba’s ‘P2P Nodes’ platform had “launched” after a registration in October 2017.
According to the available material from cnLedger, Alibaba “may incorporate” P2P Nodes in its e-commerce platform “in future”:
In a further development, fellow Chinese conglomerate Tencent has registered a “Blockchain-related trademark” for an entity referred to variously as ‘Ether Lock’ and ‘Ethernet Lock.’
The moves run contrary to the current regulatory narrative coming from Beijing. Authorities have recently made known a desire to slowly reduce participation in Bitcoin mining, while regulators are also moving to eradicate the last traces of centralized crypto-to-fiat trading.
P2P Nodes also represents an apparent U-turn for Alibaba founder Jack Ma, who in December declared that the world was “not ready” for engagement with cryptocurrency.
In an interview with CNBC around the same time, Ma revealed that Alibaba had “spent a lot of efforts” researching Blockchain technology, but that Bitcoin is “not for [him]”.
Cryptocurrency markets continue to feel the pressure in part from China’s latest regulatory moves, with Bitcoin losing almost 15% and altcoins much more in the past 24 hours’ trading.