Persif has helped create a blockchain-based financial transaction platform. The platform’s trading volume has exceeded $53 billion since its launch in January 2018 for China Construction Bank, one of the country’s four largest state-owned banks. But its biggest use for China could be in increasing the government’s control over its military.
Persif has previously worked with the Chinese police to transmit data and images in its surveillance systems through trusted nodes, and it also provides encrypted communication services to the government.
The PLA Daily, the official media outlet of the Chinese military, has detailed plans to use blockchain technology to improve and enhance military management and national defense.
According to a report published this month, the Chinese armed forces will use blockchain technology to secure confidential communications and information, evaluate the performance of military training, and monitor logistics equipment.
For example, the system could be used to automatically record shooting records and the identity of each soldier and the time of each training, increasing the credibility of the results.
The PLA Daily report, citing Samsung and IBM’s blockchain-based logistics platform, said the military could also better manage its logistics equipment by spending less on the blockchain-based platform.
The report said the smart contract protocol could create “technical trust” and provide peer-to-peer communication so that people from different departments can collaborate without the need for approval from senior officials.
In addition to the military blockchain projects currently under development around the world, Pirsafe’s cooperation with the Chinese military and security agencies will increase as more applications of the technology are developed.
Pirsafe’s existing capital
The fund that provided the capital to Pirsafe is part of Shanghai Guosheng Group, a state-owned investment company with more than $7 billion in assets.
The state-owned investment giant established the fund in 2017 amid President Xi Jinping’s emphasis on integrating civil-military technology and after taking over the Central Committee for Civil-Military Development and Integration.
One of the goals of the committee is to explore technologies that can be used for national defense and information security services in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
A report by the China National Defense University titled “President Xi’s Emphasis on the PLA: Assessing China’s Military Terminology”
said that with the country’s economic growth slowing, civil-military integration programs could reduce China’s military budget.
Ting Yan, CEO of Perseverance, said when announcing the investment from Shanghai Guosheng Group in July:
“The fund will bring in various resources, such as applications for military affairs and state-owned enterprises. Perseverance and the fund can benefit from the cooperation, technologies, distributed networks and the number of common customers.

DARPA is exploring the possibility of using blockchain in the military
DARPA, or the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is a research and technology agency under the U.S. Department of Defense that is responsible for developing and building new technologies for use by the U.S. armed forces.
DARPA is researching blockchain
The U.S. Department of Defense is trying to gain “greater competitive edge” by modernizing its digital environment. In this regard, the department released a document titled the Digital Modernization Strategy on July 12, 2019.
The document interprets the DoD’s roadmap of priorities, which includes cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, cloud, command, control, and communications. The document states the importance of the aforementioned strategy as follows:
The Digital Modernization Strategy is the cornerstone of enhancing our digital environment to connect competitive capabilities in the modern warfighting environment.
Therefore, DARPA is focusing on the practical use of blockchain technology to improve command, control, and communications.
In fact, DARPA, recognizing the benefits of blockchain, is beginning to explore this technology to create a more efficient, robust, and secure communications platform.
Blockchain-based communications platform for secure message or transaction transmission
DARPA confirms that a blockchain-based communications platform will enable secure message transmission from anywhere and allow personnel to execute their transactions through a decentralized ledger channel. The document states that:
This program will be used in a variety of ways, such as facilitating communications between units, headquarters, and information transfer between intelligence officers and the Pentagon.
Additionally, DARPA has previously attempted to develop “unhackable code” using blockchain, as the technology offers clever suggestions to hackers trying to break into secure databases.