Blockchain-based social network Planet goes viral in China, registers 300K users in 24 hrs

Blockchain is hot globally. Of course, China won’t miss this new wave of the new revolution.

On February 9, China’s tech giant NetEase released the testing model of its new blockchain social network app 'Planet'. Within 24 hours, there were about 300,000 people registered with the app as 'planet resident'.

The spreading of this app’s invitation link was even once blocked by the China’s largest social networking app Wechat. However, it could not stop people’s enthusiasm to get registered for this blockchain app.

Let’s find out what and why this app got so popular in China.

What is 'Planet'?

Planet is a blockchain technology-based app that provides users with an ecosystem to help them manage their behavioral data assets by blockchain encryption technology.

It records behavioral data of users on the platform, which include credit data, browsing trails, shopping behavior, entertainment preferences, travel records, and more. These behaviors are regarded as users’ personal data assets.

Gu Feiyong, head of product of Planet app said, “This is an attempt of NetEase Financial to use blockchain technology to reconstruct business value and ecosystem.”

The app is currently at the testing stage. Users can only register with an invitation code. The code provides a user with Planet’s digital asset "Black Diamond" as rewards.

Black Diamond describes a user’s value of personal behavioral contribution on the platform. The number of 'Black Diamonds' a user can obtain depends on the amount of 'Original Force'. Users can increase 'Original Force' by completing a variety of tasks, such as inviting friends to join, making daily login, authorizing Planet of sesame credit of Ant Financial, doing shopping, socializing, etc. The more “Original Force” one user has, the more 'Black Diamonds' the user will obtain.  

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The total number of 'Black Diamonds' on the platform is constant. The daily number of output of 'Black Diamonds' is fixed too. There are about 270,000 'Black Diamonds' in the first year on Planet. The output decreases by half every two years. It will be getting harder and harder to obtain the 'Black Diamonds' as time goes by.

Gu said that the 'Black Diamonds' can only be owned by users themselves. Planet does not support transactions as virtual currency trade is banned in China.

Planet Plans to Reconstruct Business Value and Ecosystem

The users’ time and attention will become quantifiable resources that can be shared by the users themselves to others.

According to Gu, online behavior records of users are scattered on various internet services platforms. The value of these personal behavior data was neglected before. All behaviors can be digitized in the future. Each behavior data can produce the corresponding value. The users’ time and attention will no longer be free. This will reconstruct the business logic and resources allocation.

Gu said that Planet does not have any data on users. All the data is recorded and stored in the blockchain and can only be used by users themselves with private keys. Any third party, including NetEase Financial, cannot view or use any user’s personal data without permission.

Planet plans to follow these three steps to reconstruct the business value and ecosystem.

Step 1: To build Planet for users to come and register with digital currency 'Black Diamonds' as rewards.

Step 2: To introduce third-party business services to Planet to provide all aspects of services for the users, such as e-commerce, mobile games, take-away services and so on.

Step 3: To deliver decentralized value exchange services by empowering businesses to use the users’ behavior data assets to trade directly with them on Planet.

Now Planet is inviting more business providers on the platform to build an ecosystem.

China’s Blockchain Sector Has Big Potential

Not only NetEase, China’s tech giants are preparing for the blockchain booming.

Recently, Intellectual Property Industry Media IPRdaily and incoPat Innovation Index Research Center have jointly released the 2017 Global Blockchain Business Patent Rankings. Alibaba was the frontrunner with 43 patents while Tencent was ranked 23 with 11 patents.

The app Planet was released for testing right before China’s biggest festival Spring Festival. Can it rewrite the success record created by WeChat, China’s social networking giant, for releasing its 'red envelope' function in 2014 during the Spring Festival? Let’s see how this user behavioral data assets app fares up in coming time.