Nowadays, the sharing economy has gained in popular and developed in a rapid speed. More specifically, shared and on-demand goods, such as bikes, cars, flat rooms are increasing substantially in urban cities. This economy mode has also been linked up with blockchain, the self-sovereign, decentralized transaction technology.

Yu Jianing, the director of industrial economic institute of the information center of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and the president of Huobi University, commented in an interview with business web portal China Business that, the integration of blockchain and sharing economy can improve the efficiency of information circulation and resource utilization. As thus essentially upgrading the sharing economy from simplex information sharing to value sharing.

For instance, in a shared bike scenario, the distributed hyper ledger technology of blockchain can store the information of shared bicycles and damaged data better. Furthermore, the smart contract technology can also enpower the users reward and punishment mechanisms.

This is where blockchain technology has a big potential to improve the efficiency of operation of shared bicycles and reduce costs. Yu believes that these technical applications are not difficult to implement, but it still needs the support from specific IoT (Internet of Things) devices.

Duan Xinxing, the founder of Bytom is also optimistic about the blockchain applications in sharing economy. He indicated that the blockchain technology has the potential to evoke the technological revolution in financial industry and bring the ‘genuine’ sharing economy. However, it cannot do without combination of IoT and other related technologies.

The industrial leaders in sharing economy also put a lot of efforts in blockchain development. In mid of May, Ofo, one of the biggest bike-sharing companies in China, has announced the establishment of a research center to develop the blockchain technology that will be adopted in areas including big data, the Internet of Things and the operation of shared bikes.

“The blockchain technology will help build an efficient network connecting bike-sharing firms, governments and users, which is helpful in solving the problems related to the deployment, distribution, parking and maintenance of shared bikes,” said Ofo.