China Unifies Blockchain, AI and Deepfake Filing Systems

By Elena Vasquez

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) launched a unified filing portal on Monday, placing blockchain information services alongside AI and deepfake registrations, while blockchain operators still face a 10-working-day filing requirement.

The CAC announcement sets no new registration deadline, transition period or document standard. Substantive duties remain in the separate regulations for each technology, so consolidation changes where companies report without necessarily changing what they must prove.

What does filing mean in China?

The process is called beian, usually translated as filing, and it differs from a license. A filing identifies the operator, describes the service and records where its servers sit; acceptance does not authorize financial products or endorse the provider.

Under the Blockchain Information Service Management Regulations, three mechanics apply:

• Providers must file within 10 working days of starting service, equivalent to two standard five-day workweeks.
• The CAC has 20 working days, or four such workweeks, to process a complete submission.
• The resulting filing number must appear prominently on the provider’s website or app.

In plain terms, the register identifies filers; it does not approve their services.

Can one filing cover multiple technologies?

A chatbot that writes content onto a blockchain, or a trading app that pairs a ranking algorithm with AI-generated summaries, can fall under two or three regulatory regimes. Before Monday, each regime maintained its own database, which made cross-category oversight more difficult.

The consolidated system lets the CAC compare filings across technologies and identify gaps more quickly. Business partners and users also gain one place to check whether a service is registered.

Nothing in the announcement indicates that one submission satisfies every regime. Companies operating across several categories should still expect separate obligations under each set of rules. The practical takeaway is that one portal does not create one approval.

Does the overhaul change China’s crypto policy?

No. Beijing has maintained two policy tracks since the late 2010s: state support and formal registration for distributed-ledger technology, alongside a separate approach that pushes speculative crypto activity out.

The State Council moved against cryptocurrency mining in May 2021. The People’s Bank of China followed in September 2021 by classifying crypto-related business activity as "illegal financial activity," and the new portal belongs entirely to the first track.

Mainland exchanges and trading remain prohibited, the mining ban remains, and foreign platforms gain no new opening under the announcement. A registered blockchain project receives no right to issue tradable tokens, while the CAC announced no investment incentives or token approvals.

The takeaway is straightforward: registration reform does not reopen crypto trading.

What does the AI side add?

The 2023 interim measures on generative AI impose obligations concerning personal data, lawful content and security assessments for services that can shape public opinion or mobilize people.

Five days before the filing portal launched, China separately presented an identity-registration platform for AI agents at the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen. The system gives automated agents verifiable identities, and 20 organizations, including Huawei, Alibaba, Tencent, Xiaomi and Baidu, signed an accompanying self-discipline pledge.

The two systems remain separate, although both advance the same policy objective: advanced digital services should be identifiable and on record. The result is greater identifiability, not a merged AI regime.

What remains unresolved for existing filers?

Thousands of services already hold filing numbers under the retired systems. The CAC has not said whether those numbers transfer automatically, how it will handle applications pending when the old databases closed, or whether forms will become standardized across the portal’s four categories.

That uncertainty leaves the business benefit unsettled. A standardized register could eventually make compliance more predictable for enterprise blockchain projects serving supply chains, government services and finance, but only if the CAC administers the consolidated process consistently.

Migration guidance will show whether consolidation reduces duplicated paperwork or merely moves it to a new address. Until those rules arrive, existing filers cannot assume automatic continuity or a single filing for every service. The migration terms will determine whether consolidation saves work.

Where does Hong Kong fit?

Hong Kong operates under a separate legal system and licenses virtual-asset trading platforms through its Securities and Futures Commission. Its Stablecoins Ordinance entered into force on August 1, 2025, creating a licensing regime for issuers of fiat-backed stablecoins.

The mainland CAC portal does not apply there. How far the two systems diverge on blockchain services should become clearer as the CAC publishes implementation details, but Hong Kong remains outside the mainland filing regime.

The next checkpoint is administrative rather than monetary: the CAC must specify migration treatment, pending applications and category-specific filings. Until it does, companies have no new compliance deadline beyond the existing rules for each technology.