The Chinese city of Nanjing has created a blockchain fund with a capital of 1.5 billion US dollars.

According to a report from local news source ZDNet, Nanjing, the main city of Jiangsu province, has created an investment fund to promote blockchain technology and the cryptocurrency economy.

Nanjing, located in eastern China, is one of the country's four historical capitals (along with Beijing, Luoyang and Xi'an), has the largest river port in the world and has more than 8 million residents.

The City Foundation was created jointly with the Zhongguancun Blockchain Industry Alliance, whose members include government agencies. Yuan Dao, the organization's chairman, announced the initiative at the Industrial Public Chain summit, which was also attended by Luo Qun, deputy secretary of the local Communist Party branch. Yuan Dao said that the more industries use blockchain technology, the more companies will follow suit. Nanjing city officials are also encouraging blockchain companies to move their operations within the city.

According to local publications, one of the first projects to take advantage of the fund will be UÐAP, which describes itself as medium-complexity blockchain TO software. According to the company's website, it helps users create decentralized applications to tokenize real-world assets.

Despite the ban on cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology is thriving and supported by the Chinese government. The South China Morning Post reported last week that more than 16,000 enterprises using blockchain have emerged in the past year, and more than 3,000 enterprises with the word blockchain in their name in the first half of 2018.

Local governments in many cities across the country, including Shanghai, Shanxi, Henan, Guangzhou, Guiyang and Hangzhou, are boosting the industry by providing financial support to such companies. According to local publications, approximately 41 percent of all Chinese startups that successfully received funding in 2018 were somehow related to blockchain technology.