The Central Economic Work Conference held at the end of last year pointed out that socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, and China's economic development has also entered a new era. The basic feature is that China’s economy has shifted from a high-speed growth phase to a high-quality development phase. To promote new progress in the high-quality development of China's economy, we must vigorously cultivate new economic growth points and promote the orderly conversion of new and old kinetic energy. Blockchain technology, as the underlying supporting technology of the digital economy, is expected to play an important role in the integration of the digital economy and the real economy and the development of new kinetic energy for the digital economy.

Blockchain technology is an emerging technology that uses cryptographic algorithms to collectively maintain a reliable distributed database in a decentralized manner. It has the characteristics of distributed, non-tamperable and traceable. It can make up for the shortcomings of the traditional credit system. It can prevent information from being tampered with and forged, saving the cost of society's credit. This technology will have an important impact on finance, e-commerce, smart healthcare, social security, the Internet of Things, energy and other fields. China has the largest Internet market in the world, and the development of blockchain technology is expected to producee huge space. At present, the blockchain industry in China is still in the initial stage of exploration. To promote the healthy development of the blockchain industry, we should accelerate the technological innovation of blockchain, optimize the layout of blockchain industry, and strive to create an environment, which is conducive to the development of blockchain industry. 

We should do a top-level design to promote blockchain technology to break through the application bottleneck. We should grasp the significance of the development of blockchain technology from a strategic perspective, plan ahead, timely make plans, promote the research and development of blockchain technology, and guide the healthy development of blockchain industry in all directions. In particular, we should seize the opportunity of the digital economy, adhere to the concept of openness, cooperation, and win-win, strengthen independent research and development on the basis of technology introduction, and unite multiple forces to accelerate the core technology. With the core goal of developing blockchain services and promoting the development of the real economy, we will strengthen the integration of production, education and research, promote the integration of blockchain technology, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and big data technology, and promote blockchain technology to break through the bottleneck as soon as possible.

We should strengthen technical demonstration and build a blockchain industrial chain. First, with technology research and development as the core, we must build various forms of blockchain technology incubation bases, cultivate a number of key innovation enterprises, explore new industrial models and application models of blockchain, and accelerate the industrialization of blockchain technology and the integration with traditional industry. Second, we must give full play to the role of cooperation of production, education and research, give full play to the role of convergence of various types of collaborative innovation platforms to market factors, promote the penetration of scientific and technological innovation into economy and society and other fields, and build an efficient industrial chain. Third, we must speed up the formulation of industry standards for blockchain technology and achieve standardized development of blockchain industry.

We should strengthen policy guidance and optimize the development environment for the blockchain industry. We should promptly formulate relevant policies to promote the development of blockchain innovation enterprises, actively guide all types of venture capital funds to increase investment in blockchain enterprises, which are in the initial stage. We should encourage various financial institutions and intermediary service organizations to provide financial services to blockchain enterprises, and promote the development of blockchain technology R&D and application enterprises. In addition, it is necessary to improve the talents training and introduction system to provide professional talents for blockchain technology innovation and the industrial development. 

We need to improve the rules and regulations to ensure the healthy development of the block chain industry. First, according to the operational characteristics of blockchain technology, we should improve laws and regulations from data security, technical security, and scenario application security to prevent and reduce potential risks, which may have negative impact on the development and application of new technologies, provide a good environment for the development of blockchain industry. Second, we need to strengthen the scientific supervision for the development of the blockchain industry, continuously improve the means and methods of supervision, fully anticipate and effectively solve the risks that may arise in the application of technology, and severely crack down on illegal behaviors in the name of the blockchain.

(The author is the director of the Institute of banking and public finance of the SASS and Researcher of Shandong Provincial Research Center for Socialism with Chinese Characteristics)