As ICO enters an ice age  and the cryptocurrency has entered a bear market, some people is wondering whether the blockchain technology is just a flash in the pan. In this regard, Jiang Guofei, vice president of Ant Financial holds an opposite view.

September 20, the head of the Ant Blockchain said “the blockchain commercial era is coming in 2018, which is far beyond our imagination” in the 2018 Ant Technology Exploration Conference (ATEC).

Jiang disclosed the latest development of the Ant Blockchain: the BaaS platform. He also announced that, the Ant Blockchain Partner Program has officially launched. Since then, the blockchain small and medium enterprises may be able to directly work on the underlying technology to develop and unlock various application scenarios.

On the same day, Ant Financial officially open up its Ant Fintech program, and the blockchain has become an important part in its public catalog.

“In the past two years, the Ant Blockchain has done two things. One is to cultivate internal technical skills, and the other is to open up the technology and accelerate the commercialization of blockchain.”

In the past two months, The Ant Financial landing the new blockchain application scenario at a half-month frequency:the firm launches world’s first blockchain-based cross-border remittance service in Hong Kong and the Philippines; the first blockchain-powered medical electronic bill in China in Zhejiang Province. It also cooperated with Shanghai Huashan Hospital to launched the country’s first blockchain electronic prescription; and joined hands with Hainan Province Government to land the country’s first blockchain provident fund deposit certificate; as well as jointly launch the world’s first judicial chain with Hangzhou Internet Court.

Ant Financial has adopted blockchain technology in 15 application scenarios within half year.  They has also made technical breakthrough in the fields including consensus mechanisms, smart contracts, trusted computing, privacy protection, and cross-chain interaction. They have applied  hundreds of technical patents in these areas.

Jiang believes that the blockchain has entered the commercial era in advance. First of all, it is benefiting from the advancement of technological capabilities, as thus the system performance is becoming more and more mature; secondly, open technology triggers the crowd-accelerated innovation; Finally, the cooperation with industry giants stimulates the snowball effect. He also predicted that, blockchain may surpass AI in the next two years.