Chinese media outlet Toutiao has reported that a major fintech company is in negotiations to acquire technology from the Abu Dhabi–based Venom Foundation. If confirmed, the deal would mark one of the largest cross-border blockchain technology transfers into the Chinese financial system and would align with Beijing’s call to modernize financial services using artificial intelligence and distributed ledger technologies.
The discussions reportedly focus on Venom’s blockchain architecture and its potential role in next-generation digital finance. The story comes amid a wave of strategic deals in the sector. In June, Hong Kong–listed trading platform OSL saw its share price jump after announcing an acquisition by a Canadian firm, illustrating how blockchain-related moves are increasingly shaping valuations and investor sentiment.
Venom’s appeal lies in its combination of scale and compliance. Stress tests this year demonstrated the system’s ability to handle 150,000 transactions per second, with settlement in under three seconds. Its architecture employs dynamic sharding to scale without performance loss and supports multiple environments through bridges to EVM, WASM, and Venom’s proprietary Threaded Virtual Machine.
Equally important for Chinese partners are Venom’s built-in compliance tools. The platform includes know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money-laundering (AML) mechanisms, as well as the capacity to issue state-backed stablecoins. These features align with China’s regulatory direction and ambition to expand yuan-based settlement systems abroad.
Market analysts suggest Venom’s infrastructure could address longstanding issues in China’s economy. Supply chain finance, for instance, suffers from banks’ reluctance to extend credit to small and medium-sized enterprises. Blockchain records could offer greater transparency and reliability. Tokenized yuan could reduce dependence on U.S. dollar corridors. Other potential applications include carbon credit tracking and integration with AI systems for real-time risk assessments.
These possibilities would not be without precedent. Ant Group, the financial arm of Alibaba, has previously acquired stakes in regional fintech startups to extend Alipay’s cross-border footprint. By folding external innovations into its platform, Ant showed how large Chinese firms rapidly scale new technologies. A Venom deal would reflect the same logic, but on a much broader level, embedding blockchain infrastructure at the core of China’s financial modernization.
Sources close to the matter indicate a deal could be finalized between late 2025 and early 2026, though company representatives have declined to comment. Regardless of timing, the talks point to a larger trajectory: China’s financial institutions are no longer simply experimenting with blockchain, they are preparing to weave it into the fabric of their economy.
