Within a week, two large-scale blockchain-related forums were held in Hainan island, China’s southmost province. Hainan is now seemed as the hot-spot of blockchain investment with no match.

Hainan’s dedicated economic pilot zone has pledged to boost the role blockchain tech plays in the local economy. The new measures, which the pilot zone announced at a press conference this week, include a fund worth 1 billion yuan ($142 million).

Hainan is also exploring the offshore business mode of registration in the region and operation at home and abroad to break the barrier for international enterprises to enter China, On that day, OK Group, the operator of cryptocurrency exchange OKEx, said it would set up a digital asset trading laboratory in.

Hainan has always been a testing ground for various pilot measures of reform and opening up in China.

“Hainan is a ‘special zone for pilot’. The central government gives it a lot of preferential policies and the privilege of first trying as enterprises have easy access. The decision-making level of local government in Hainan has a high enthusiasm for developing blockchain. Last but not least, Hainan is a relatively independent area as an island, so it is easy to isolate problems encountered in the first trying process.”

Said Yu Fenghui, a famous Chinese economist. However, he believes that the disadvantages of Hainan are evident. Whether Hainan can attract talents is not sure. The overall investment environment in Hainan, including people’s concept about blockchain is relatively backward. And the blockchain industry is still in the early stage of exploration with the profit-making mode is not mature, which needs financial support from the government, but in recent years, due to real estate regulation and control, the financial power of Hainan is relatively weak.

It is very difficult to retain talents in Hainan. Most of them are foreign speculators and adventurers, and some of them are policy arbitrageurs. Hainan’s industrial and financial foundation is relatively weak, and its industrial structure has been dominated by tourism for a long time.

Compared with countries overseas like Singapore, Hainan has almost no competitiveness, even if there is a policy dividend. Hainan is hard to compete with the old-school countries and regions specialized in the digital economy industry as the policy is unstable.