Alibaba’s Jack Ma Releases Blockchain Cross-Border Remittance System and Calls Bitcoin a ‘Bubble’

Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant, has slowly become involved with blockchain technology, after releasing a couple of services based on the distributed ledger. However, its co-founder, Jack Ma, has issued a warning about bitcoin during a speech he held at a Hong Kong event.

To put things better into perspective, the department in-charge with financial technology for Alibaba, Ant Financial, has recently announced the commencement of a blockchain-based joint venture. The cross-border remittance service will record transactions onto the public ledger for added security, and speed, and is bound to be released in the short-term feature.

However, during his speech at the launch event, Jack Ma has showcased that he is an advocate for blockchain technology, but also that he isn’t a bitcoin fan. In his statement, Ma mentioned: “It is…not right to become rich overnight by betting on blockchain (…) Technology itself isn’t the bubble, but bitcoin likely is.”

According to him, blockchain technology has numerous purposes, and can be used to solve issues such as data privacy, security and sustainability. However, due to the appearance of digital currencies, the underlying technology has turned more and more into a tool for making money.

The remittance service, on the other hand, will be part of the AliPay online-payments network, and facilitate instant cash transfers between people located in Hong Kong and the Philippines. In comparison to standard remittance services, blockchain technology makes transactions cheaper, more secure, but also instant from a speediness standpoint. Reports indicate that the service has been created as part of a partnership between GCash (operated by Globe Telecom), and Ant Financial.

The digital currency market has been unstable during the last couple of weeks, due to high price volatility, regulatory uncertainty and a few high-profile exchange hacks. However, this does not change the high potential of cryptocurrencies for the worldwide financial market. It only shows that there’s still work to do before such a payment system can be mass adopted worldwide.