Walk for a short while on the streets of any of China’s big cities and there’s zero chance you won’t run into electric two-wheelers whose riders, in their yellow or blue helmets, usually work for China’s largest delivery services Ele.me and Meituan Dianping, or deliver online shopping packages. Chinese fintech behemoth Ant Financial, and battery giant CATL, are betting on those riders. The two companies, along with Shanghai-based bike-sharing company Hellobike, are investing a billion yuan...

Weibo/Qianliyan A meme taking over China’s internet is showcasing the privileged lives of its rich millennials. The photos and videos spreading on Chinese social network Weibo have a common motif: Young women purportedly tripping out of luxury vehicles, sprawled on the floor and surrounded by prized possessions that have spilled out of their expensive handbags. It’s the Chinese version of the “falling stars challenge,” which had already spread to Russia and India, fellow countries with stark...

Tencent is giving Chinese authorities a helping hand in cracking down on cryptocurrencies. Last night (Aug. 21), WeChat, Tencent’s messaging app with a billion users, permanently closed a number of public accounts that provided news and updates on the cryptocurrency and blockchain ecosystem. At least nine accounts have been taken down, according to financial-news outlet Caixin (paywall, link in Chinese), including crypto-focused media outlets Coindaily, Huobi Zixun, Shenlian, and...

How hot is blockchain in China? “Even vendor aunties selling vegetables are talking about blockchain” is a saying spreading widely on social media—and it isn’t much of an exaggeration. Chinese companies, if not street hawkers, are racing to file patents tied to the technology that makes it hard to tamper with information. Last year more than half of the world’s approximately 400 blockchain-related patent applications were from China, according to Thomson Reuters, which sourced data from the...

Last year, Chinese consumers got a chance to verify the goodness of the steaks coming to them from a local producer. Now they’ll be able to track their meat all way back to farms in Australia, one of the country’s major beef suppliers, thanks to the help of technology that makes it hard to tamper with information. JD.com, China’s second-largest e-commerce site, is working with Australian exporter InterAgri to use blockchain to track the production and delivery of Black Angus beef. InterAgri...