Beijing (People's Daily) - The latest white paper on blockchain technology was released Wednesday by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) in Beijing. Efforts on reinforcing supervision were vowed to rebuild industrial reliability after several financing scandals. 

A special media watchdog group led by China's state media Xinhua News Agency was also announced at the news conference, which will help "provide positive and rational publicity and create broader opinion space for the industry to further speed up its high quality development", said Yao Yujiang, assistant president of Xinhuanet.

 Yao Yujiang, assistant president of Xinhuanet delivers a speech 

Blockchain, the digital technology that underpins the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, is hailed as the next frontier of innovation. As a new type of integrated application based on technologies, including distributed data storage, point-to-point transmission and encryption algorithm, blockchain, which features decentralization, openness, tamper-proofing and anonymity, can be widely adopted.

A report from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said the number of blockchain technology companies in China has exceeded 456 as of March. They are exploring ways to apply blockchain in a wide array of areas, ranging from financing, platform and security, to health care, gaming, education and human resources, which have accelerated the digitization of society.

However, China, like many other developing countries, still lacks technical standards and specialized audit and verification systems for blockchain, and the white paper has clearly demonstrated guidelines and standards for the technology and specified its development priority to be pluggable, usable and secure.

"More challenges on techniques, applications, talent and supervision are waiting for blockchain in the future, and it's necessary to encourage public opinion, strengthen research on key technologies, and promote deep integration with sustainable economy", said He Baohong, the director of CAICT’s Cloud Computing and Big Data Research Institute.

He Baohong, the director of CAICT’s Cloud Computing and Big Data Research Institute