Chinese Ride Hailing Company Founder to Launch Blockchain-Based Taxi App
On the 28th may, china money reported that Chen Weixing, the founder of Chinese ride hailing company Kuaidi Dache, is intending to launch a blockchain-based ride hailing application.
Chen is collaborating with co founder of Meituan Yang Jun to launch the project. Chen plans to make a platform that will offer way of life service, for example, ride hailing and deliveries, among others.
Speaking at the China International Big Data Industry Expo 2018, Jun said, “I’ve been asking myself what’s the value of the blockchain. My definition is to see whether and where people can actually use it. With the use of blockchain, we can build a set of economic systems different from the previous ones…We can direct traffic from the Internet and add on different services to meet users’ needs.”
Also speaking at the occasion, Chen said, “Ride hailing is the first time blockchain will be tested on a social application on mass scale.” Neither Chen nor Jun gave details of the projects timeline.
Kuaidi, which is presently part of Didi Chuxing, merged with Didi Dache in 2016. Didi Chuxing is currently worth $60 bln and is purportedly looking for an initial public offering at a higher valuation. Meituan is an on-demand local services firm that merged with review site Dianping in 2016. Meituan Dianping is presently valued at $30 bln.
Prior this month, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology distributed a blockchain industry white paper, disclosing that the domestic blockchain industry developed “exponentially” in 2017. According to the paper, 178 new blockchain startups launched in 2017.
