The highly anticipated Beijing Winter Olympics have come and gone, and the soft launch of China’s CBDC, the e-CNY, had a very frosty reception[1] at the event marked by international boycotts. That being said, it seems that China[2] is just getting started.
Keep your Chin-a up
A report by the South China Morning Post[3] reported that the central bank’s Digital Currency Research Institute was racing to hire blockchain experts, engineers, developers, and digital architects at exorbitant rates in order to widen the reach of the e-CNY trial.
While mining Bitcoin and trading NFTs might be illegal in China, the country is far from shunning blockchain technology and clearly has ambitious plans. SCMP reported[4] that hundreds of positions were open.
While adoption rates need to be viewed with caution, Reuters reported[5] that e-CNY cumulative transaction value had grown close to $10 billion at the last count. In addition to that, the e-CNY wallet has been downloaded some 2.5 million times, and 10 cities are part of the pilot program.
*poke* Do something, USA
Meanwhile, in the USA, officials are discussing theory. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell listed out[6] some requirements for a potential American CBDC. These were user privacy, being “identity verifiable,” being a part of intermediary institutions, and being widely accepted for payments.
Powell’s comments came as finance and military analysts worried that Russian might subvert economic sanctions by instead using the e-CNY.
However, SCMP reported[7] that e-CNY adoption was still behind payment apps such as Alipay and WeChat Pay. With users numbering less than 300 million[8] at the last count and the e-CNY still being in a pilot phase, the central bank’s hiring scheme shows that the
