Chinese Taxi App Founder Announces Plan to Integrate Blockchain Tech into Ridesharing Service

The Big Data Expo 2018 was concluded this Sunday in Guiyang, capital of Guizhou Province in China, and one of the intriguing announcements during its post-event function came from Chen Weixing. Weixing is the CEO of app developer Funcity and founder of the Chinese ridesharing app Kuaidi Dache.

Following its release, the ride-hailing application was an instant hit and went on to rival another giant in its market, Didi Chuxing. The two slug it out for years, subsidizing costs until they shook hands three years ago. The merger transformed the two rivals into the biggest ridesharing app in the country, ultimately driving Uber out of China through an acquisition.

Now, Weixing wants to integrate blockchain technology into the ridesharing app, Coindesk reported. This time, Funcity’s CEO means to collaborate with Yang Jun, co-founder of one of the country’s biggest group discount apps, Meituan.

The entrepreneur said ridesharing will be the first time blockchain tech will be applied to a social app of this grand scale, according to China Money Network. One of the major problems that blockchain tech has when implemented in an industry this size is scalability.

Ridesharing oversees thousands of transactions a day. This becomes a problem since the more the transactions are, the bigger the block becomes. And a bigger block means more processing power, essentially decreasing transaction time.

There are several solutions to this issue, including what’s called sharding. This method basically separates blockchain network nodes into smaller chunks called shards. The consensus protocol is run by each shard, then a dedicated group links each shard’s output in order to arrive at a consensus. This essentially divides the workload between groups, creating a faster and more efficient method of processing data.

But Weixing didn’t disclose which solution they’re going to take to solve scalability problems. He also didn’t say which blockchain platform he’s going to use to develop the app nor did he announce when the app’s completion is going to be.