Chinese City Causes Confusion with Digital Asset Exchange Proposal

The municipal government of Chongqing city, China, is mulling the formation of a "Blockchain digital asset exchange," but no one is quite sure what it means.

On Thursday, the Economy and Information Committee, an economic development agency that forms part of the Chongqing government executive body, published five measures the city will take to advance blockchain tech in the area.

Apart from attracting more specialized talent with additional funds, the notice said it will focus on building a blockchain ecosystem, which most notably included "Establishing a blockchain digital asset exchange."

Subsequently, the Chongqing city government's official website republished the same statement early Friday morning - including mention of the "Blockchain digital asset exchange."

Friday, a local news source cited information from the government indicating that the digital assets may not be the same as ICO tokens or cryptocurrency.

Instead, the blockchain digital asset exchange seems to be a platform that facilitates exchanges of "Non-standard assets" that are digitalized through blockchain technology.

They may be exchanged among institutions, but are not tradable on a secondary stock exchange.

As previously reported by CoinDesk, several Chinese private commercial banks have already started piloting a blockchain-based system to transfer transactions of letters of credit on a consortium blockchain.

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