The People’s Bank of China, China’s central bank, is in the process of recruiting blockchain experts as it ramps up its longstanding effort to develop and issue its own digital currency.

First reported by local publication Shanghai Daily, the central bank issued the recruiting call, offering six positions for the development and design of both software and hardware frameworks for digital currency.

Applicants with experience in blockchain technology development, big data, cryptography, and systems design are particularly desirable and will be preferred. Applicants must also hold a master’s or a doctoral degree in cryptography, information security, and computer science, according to the recruitment notice.

The hiring drive comes soon after the bank’s vice-governor, Fan Yifei, penned a recent Bloomberg column wherein the official opined that the best way for governments to make the most of the innovation of digital currencies is by creating their own, which will stay under their control. Yifei sees reduced operating costs, increased efficiency, and a broad range of new applications as the many outcomes of moving from a paper-based currency to its digital form.

China’s endeavor to develop its own digital currency became public knowledge in early 2016, when it was revealed that the PBOC had set up a ‘special research team’ – that included experts from Citibank and Deloitte among others – to research and look into the regulatory frameworks for issuing a nationwide digital currency.

At the time, a public reveal from the PBOC said of this special team:

The digital currency team…should clarify the strategic objectives of central bank digital currency issuance, thoroughly research key technologies, research various applications for digital currency to help the central bank introduce a digital currency, as soon as possible.

The benefits of digital currency, according to the PBOC, included reduced costs, increased transparency, curbing tax evasion, improved monetary control of supply and circulation by the Central bank, and bringing solutions to the unbanked in the country.

The following month, PBOC governor Zhou Xlaochuan revealed in a wide-ranging interview that paper money was a “last generation currency” while adding that there was no set timetable, yet, for the deployment of the central bank-issued digital currency. The official also sought to differentiate the proposed digital currency with bitcoin, the most widely used and popular digital currency around. A “51% attack” would not occur with the digital currency, he argued.

With its latest hiring call, the world’s second-biggest economy is making definitive strides to issue its own digital cash.

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