With the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting just about every type of business and personal activity in the United States, China and elsewhere around the world, many people are wondering whether new enterprises and services will launch. There is a lot of distraction, worry, anxiety and fear over the COVID-19 pandemic, and many people are hunkering down and reducing their contact with others. China had planned to launch its blockchain service network, and now industry analysts and investors are wondering if this is still going to happen on the timeline that was originally proposed.

Several media outlets that report on cryptocurrencies assert that China's blockchain service network will still launch in April 2020. Those predictions are based on reports released prior to China's first death from COVID-19. On October 15, 2019, Xinhua News reported that the nationwide blockchain service network had started testing. Its six-month testing phase was supposed to conclude by March 31, 2020. Xinhua News is a state-operated agency.

The network's core technology was nearly completed at that time. More than 50 public nodes were deployed across 31 provinces and cities in China. By early January 2020, right around the time that COVID-19 was identified as a disease caused by a co-variant of the SARS virus, the national leader of the Smart City Development Research Center said that the network would launch in April after the conclusion of testing.

Only one week later, China had its first COVID-19 fatality. The blockchain services platform had already processed $12.7 billion in transactions from 44 banks and 1,900 companies in Shenzhen through the middle of January. There have been few reports since that time. Analysts think that is because of the rapid development of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The most recent mention of the network was on March 9. In the Global Times media outlet, it was announced that the People's Bank of China had $4.7 million in funding for research for the network for a three-year period.

The COVID-19 pandemic could be a good testing situation for the applications of blockchain. Distributed ledgers could track and record medical equipment, donations and infection locations.