Government-owned China Telecom is planning to develop 5G SIM cards that would be supported by blockchain technology. According to Chinese news website Sina, China Telecom released its white paper about the project on 27th August at the China International Smart Industry Fair.
The white paper describes a 5G sim card that would be supported by Ethereum and ERC20 tokens and would be compatible with all types of smartphones. With this technology, the company aims to make smartphones decentralized and create a safe and secure network.
According to research by China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, the Chinese government and companies are expected to invest as much as $411 billion in 5G technology over the next decade.
The white paper highlights the importance of data privacy and ownership in the coming years as the technology grows. This blockchain-enabled 5G Sim would allow users to own their data and give them more privacy. However, the Chinese government is known for prying on its citizens. China also announced to release its central bank backed cryptocurrency.
The white paper detailed some of the benefits that users would enjoy, which includes digital identity authentication, which would enable users to depend on the decentralized id instead of usernames and passwords.
The company did not provide any timeline as to when the project will go live or when the Sim cards would be made available in the market. This project could prove to be revolutionary as it would allow people to share their data with financial services providers and give them proper data ownership and privacy.
