(Yicai Global) March 12 -- China's leading real estate service provider E-House (China) Holdings Ltd. has set up a blockchain research center 'House-chain' to study the application of this technology in real estate, which it will apply in all its E-House stores.

E-House's second-hand housing trading platform Fangyou has set up over 5,000 stores nationwide, Business Sohu reported, quoting E-House as saying in a March 9 news briefing in Shanghai. E-House has established China's first real estate blockchain application research center, said Zhou Xin, its chairman and chief executive, at the news briefing.

Blockchain can encrypt and store key information such as property rights, operating rights, valid contracts and trading prices with its distributed booking, and generate contracts intelligently without being danger of copying or being tampered with. Fangyou will form a house-chain alliance among its stores nationwide for transparent and efficient real estate brokerage services, Zhou Xin said.

E-House's competitor Beijing Lianjia Real Estate Brokerage Co. has launched a blockchain house rental application platform in Xiong'an New District, in northern Hebei province. Ant Financial, a fintech affiliate of China's internet giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., is backing the platform with its technology, online news outlet ITHome reported last month.