China’s digital currency – Almost ready to launch

We wrote earlier that China’s digital currency is getting closer. According to this earlier reporting, the digital yuan would launch on November 11, but proved too ambitious. According to a Shanghais newspaper (tip: Google Translate), more information is now known.

Currency is not intended for speculation

Last weekend Mu Changchun of the People’s Bank of China spoke about the coming digital currency during an event. He is leading the project to launch the digital coin: “The coin is not meant for speculation. The currency is therefore different from bitcoin or stable tokens, which can be used for speculation or which require the support of a basket of currencies. “

According to Mu Changchun, the digital currency is therefore not very exciting. The coin simply becomes a “digital variant of the yuan”. In recent years, the Chinese central bank has done a lot of research and has worked hard to develop a digital yuan. According to Mu Changchun, the digital currency is now almost ready to launch.

Pilots are coming

But before the time comes, a number of pilots will first come. Sometime in 2020, some Chinese banks and parties will start adopting the digital currency. We wrote earlier that Alibaba, Tencent, four Chinese banks and Union Pay are the first to get access to the currency. That is by the way not yet certain, because we can only find that news from one source.

The currency is expected to launch sometime in 2020. Mu Changchun hasn’t published a specific date or timeline yet.

In addition, the question is whether Chinese stores and Chinese residents will use the new currency. For example, electronic payments in China now run a lot via other payment services. For example, according to recent figures, AliPay has more than 1.2 billion users. And WeChat Pay is also doing well with 900 million active users.

Do you want to stay up to date with not only the digital yuan, but with all governmental cryptos? That is possible on our page about CBDCs.