China’s CBDC development ‘progressing smoothly’

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Updated on Mar 11, 2020
Reading time 2 minutes
  • China's central bank recently reported on the development of its national cryptocurrency.
  • The update came during the bank's annual work conference in Beijing, when the bank claimed that the development is progressing well.
  • The PBoC still did not release a launch date for the coin, although many believe that it will come at some point in 2020.

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China’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) has been one of the hottest topics in the financial industry for months now. Countries around the world are waiting for new updates, while they continue to search for every bit of information that they can find, interested in the development of the country’s national currencies.

With China being one of the most powerful economies around the world, this does not come as a surprise. And, while the country remains secretive of the details, its central bank recently posted an announcement during its Beijing-based annual work conference. The announcement did not release a lot of details regarding the CBDC either, but the bank did point out that its development is ‘progressing smoothly.

They added that they plan to ‘steadily advance the development of legal digital currencies’ throughout 2020. However, the bank failed to announce the launch date for digital yuan at this time.

China’s CBDC to arrive after years in development

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As some may know, China remains unfriendly towards ‘traditional’ digital currencies, such as Bitcoin and other top altcoins. While its people did have some favorites over the years, the country itself is still strongly against cryptos, as confirmed by the ban on trading and the recent crackdown, which is the second one in the last few years.

Even so, the country does see potential in a cryptocurrency, as long as it can control it. This is why it started developing its own CBDC quite early, about five years ago, at least. In fact, some claims state that the PBoC started its crypto initiative back in 2014.

While it took some time, it is believed that digital yuan’s launch might finally arrive in 2020. Once the coin is released, it will originally be distributed to commercial banks, and only then will it be delivered to businesses and users. Meanwhile, those interested in using it will have to register their digital wallets with said banks.

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