Alibaba's Cryptic Relationship With Bitcoin and Blockchain

It won't be easy to find Alibaba's hands directly linked to Bitcoin like in the way that many maybe would hope to see; the eCommerce store suddenly started accepting Bitcoin, but - delving deeper into the subsidiaries - there is evidence of Alibaba experimenting with blockchain itself.

There is more evidence of Ma, and Alibaba getting its hands near - but never directly on - blockchain and cryptocurrency technology when ZhongAn Tech announced its plans to use blockchain technology to cut risk and costs in healthcare insurance.

ZhongAn, the technology incubator for ZhongAn Online Property & Casualty Insurance, was founded in 2013 by the chairman of Alibaba Group, Ma. This use of blockchain in such a space also tied in with Ma's general thoughts on blockchain being effective for addressing privacy and security issues across all industry sectors.

This financial arm of Alibaba also recruited blockchain experts to actively look into the potential of blockchain technology through 2017 and surely has been building up a big base of knowledge and information on the technology.

Speaking in May, at the second World Intelligence Conference in Tianjin, Ma said that blockchain technology is not a bubble, but Bitcoin is.

Ma has always warned against those who view cryptocurrency - and blockchain - as a "Huge gold mine," even at the Bitcoin frenzy height of December 2017, Ma was perplexed at what he was seeing around the cryptocurrency space.

Ma seems to be doing all he can to separate Bitcoin from blockchain in a way that many see as impossible - or, at least, unfeasible.

Many will argue that there is no splitting cryptocurrencies from blockchain technology, and that they are intrinsically linked, such as Elizabeth Stark, CEO of Lightning Labs, which developed the Lightning blockchain scalability protocol.

"When we first pitched my company Lightning Labs, we actually took the word 'Bitcoin' out of our deck and our marketing material because it was so much about blockchain. Now, I feel like we've entered into a 'Bitcoin, not blockchain' world, where people understand the value of cryptocurrency technology and what these can bring. You also have Proof-of-Work in Bitcoin, you have the public/private key cryptography. There are other things that make Bitcoin special. Somehow, the blockchain part got separated and became a thing."

There may be a debate as to the possibility of separating Bitcoin and blockchain - and if it is viable or right - but what is for certain is that those at the top of their game seem to be more interested in the technology rather than the 'prize.