China’s “Xi Jinping app” is reportedly promoting cryptocurrency course

According to cnLedger, a crypto news source, Xuexi Qiangguo, a well-known app, is recommending a course on blockchain technology that contains lessons on Bitcoin, Ethereum and cryptocurrency. The app has already spawned quite a few monikers since January 1 by China’s tech giant Alibaba. 

Known as a “fun educational tool,” Xuexi Qiangguo is also called Study Xi, Strong Nation,” “Study the Powerful Nation” and the “Xi Ping Thought” app as it has adopted the views of the President and the Communist Party. President Xi recently talked about his support for developing blockchain technology. 

The country has also passed a cryptography law aimed at “facilitating the development of the cryptography business and ensuring the security of cyberspace and information”. The law will be valid from January 1, 2020. The app will also be conducting a test for journalists to prove their understanding of Xi Pinjing Thought as well as their loyalty to the Communist Party, according to a report by the US government’s Open Technology Fund. It also spotted a “backdoor” in the code of the app, enabling the collection of detailed daily log reports having user information and app activity.

The researchers reported:

The packages that contain the “backdoor” code are all in the package namespace containing the values “aliyun and alibaba,” suggesting that these packages were created and are maintained by Alibaba or Alibaba Cloud.