Chinese Company wants to developer Ride-Sharing Blockchain App

The marketplace for ride-sharing and transport peer-to-peer service is constantly growing. It has seemingly subsided after the big exposition it attained with the rise of Uber and Lyft, but the reason for this is only media fatigue. The fact is that the industry has never been bigger, even with the drop in the mainstream media interest. In many nations, the big global services and local equivalents have become just as popular as the traditional taxi services. What is more important, new markets are constantly emerging and getting new players on board.

China is biggest such emerging market outside of the US and the EU and like with social media, eSports and pretty much any other digital venture, it is more than vibrant. A piece of news coming from the same region is connecting this industry and the blockchain development. Here are some additional details and why it could be a very important development for both industries.

Chen Weixing Plan

The mentioned name belongs to the CEO of Funcity, an app developer and the founder of Kuaidi Dache. This company provides the services for ride-hailing in China and it has managed to become quite successful.

But now, the man behind both companies have revealed plans to create a ride-sharing equivalent to Uber. The twist, however, is the fact that it will use the blockchain technology to make this happen.

Weixing revealed this at an event that took place after the end of the 2018 Guiyang Big Data Expo. He said that the platform would be developed by their partners headed by Yang Jun, who is the co-founder of Meituan. This company is one of the biggest in the country when it comes to discount apps.

In his announcement, Weixing said that the project will test out the blockchain potential on such a massive ride-hailing project. Clearly, the benefits of such a project seem immediate and massive, as long as it can perform in the right manner. At this point, there is little practical experience that can be applied to the same process so that is has a better chance of working properly.

Technical Issues of Uber-like Blockchain

The development domain around the blockchain did not take long to show interesting in the Weixing. However, many noticed that in his statement, he did not disclose what blockchain platform would be used to develop the app.

He also did not speak about the scalability issues and how the app would try to overcome them. But, the lack of experience in the blockchain domain is contrasted by Weixing’s knowledge in the other industry. With many years in the business, the entrepreneur and company leader is well-versed in development of app around the ride-sharing and ride-hailing concept.

The Case of Kuaidi Dache

Kuaidi Dache was founded in 2012 by Weixing. Back then, the company immediately took off in the country and started to rival Didi Chuxing, another ride-hailing app. Interestingly, as it is often the case in China, both companies were backed using big venture capital from the same sources.

These included giants like Alibaba and Tencent, but this did not stop the two apps from entering into a business war, which was often fought on bitter terms. After subsidizing prices and many additional conflict points, the two merged in late 2014. This immediately transformed the new company into the biggest ride-hailing app in the country. The new business venture kept the name Didi Chuxing and it even later pushed the global giant Uber out of the country using an acquisition.

Right now, the business is known as Didi and it is a huge venture in every sense. It has over 450 million users and works in over 400 cities in China. Its services encompass everything from bus services to bike sharing. Interestingly, out of its 9,000 employees, two in five are women, which is a great result for such a huge and tech-oriented company.

Now, the company plans on expanding outside of China and it appears to have all that is needed for the Asian market at least. This is also indicated for the overall mentality that is currently active in the car sharing and car-hailing industry.

Active Expansion

As the companies like Didi plan to move to the foreign market, the people in the industry like Weixing are very open to new technologies. He is one of the most vocal supporters of blockchain application in China. As of February 2018, he has invested in at least 12 cryptocurrency projects in the country. These include the digital exchange platforms like Huobi and Finance.

His willingness to branch out into blockchain merger with car-hauling digital products seems to be another aspect of an active search for new opportunities. Some might be wondering if this taking place in China, which has recently cracked down on many forms of cryptocurrency business, is a bad move.

However, while there is a complicated relationship between the Chinese state and the existing cryptocurrencies, there is no such problem between it and the blockchain technology. Even the Chinese government agrees that the technology in question is the future and has to be applied to improve the world of today as soon as possible.

A Chinese Shot on the Global Market

The industry around the process of car-hailing is only gearing up for the next big step – autonomous driving. When that comes, the market share of the companies that can move to this principle the fastest will grow practically overnight.

While no one can say for sure when will this major switch happen, it is certainly coming. The same is true for digital currencies and the technology that supports them: no matter if a person uses bitcoin for online betting or employs its tech for a distributed car-hailing server, the end result is equally effective.

With the background companies like Didi and individuals like Chen Weixing possess, they could be the true pioneers of the emerging markets that use all of these technologies. Having a chance to grow globally could be one of the first examples of Chinese companies dominating a whole particular field of tech industry outside of their country.

Source: CoinDesk