E-commerce giant JD.com took payments in China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) at a massive local shopping event. JD.com accepted digital yuan (e-CNY) for payment on its e-commerce application for the Singles Day promotion period which began on Oct. 31 and ended on Nov. 11, the firm confirmed on Thursday. Singles Day is an unofficial shopping holiday in the country that also celebrates people who aren't in a romantic relationship. “100,000 people had used e-CNY on JD.com’s app during the Singles Day promotion period as of today,” a spokesperson for JD.com told Cointelegraph. “We will continue to work with related …

Conflicting news about whether Chinese property giant Evergrande had defaulted on its overdue loan payments emerged just before Bitcoin’s recent price crash. Evergrande Group is China’s second-largest property developer and is in debt for roughly $300 billion. There are fears that its collapse could spark a wider financial crisis. Two minutes after Evergrande’s payment was due, the Deutsche Markt Screening Agentur (DMSA) issued an announcement on Nov. 10 at 4 p.m. UTC stating that it was preparing bankruptcy proceedings against Evergrande. Two hours later at about 6 .p.m. UTC, Bitcoin began it’s hours-long pullback to $62,800. Media outlet Morning Brew …

During a virtual video session at the Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies' 30th Anniversary Conference, People's Bank of China governor Gang Yi discussed recent developments regarding the country's central bank digital currency, or CBDC, known as the digital yuan (e-CNY). Gang specifically addressed the issue of privacy surrounding the Digital Yuan in the following statement, as translated by Cointelegraph: We are taking a high degree of focus on issues surrounding the security of personal information and the digital yuan and have made relevant regulatory and technological adjustments to meet this objective. We have adopted a principle of anonymity …

China’s trials with central bank digital currency (CBDC) show no signs of slowing down, as the updated numbers for October 2021 revealed at Hong Kong Fintech Week. Set out to replace cash in day-to-day transactions, the digital yuan (e-CNY) is gaining traction among individuals and corporates alike, according to PBoC’s Digital Currency Institute head Mu Changchun. Speaking at the conference on Wednesday, Mu said the number of individual digital yuan accounts hit 140 million while corporates created another 10 million accounts. While the official launch date is still unclear for e-CNY, China has continued to expand the rollout of trials …

Amid the ongoing nonfungible tokens (NFT) boom, people in Asia-Pacific (APAC) countries appear to be the most curious about NFTs, according to Google Trends data. Google Trends data shows that China, Singapore and Hong Kong are the three top countries in the world in terms of the number of “NFT” searches on Google over the past year. According to the data, China has posted the highest number of such searches, with the Google search index amounting to 100 points. Singapore and Hong Kong follow with 67 and 62 points, respectively. Other major “NFT”-searching countries include Venezuela, Philippines, Cyprus, Canada, New …

Major cryptocurrency exchange Huobi has ended futures and other derivatives trading in mainland China today, as planned. Earlier this month, cryptocurrency exchange announced on its website that it will settle all futures, contracts, and other derivatives activities for all Chinese consumers today, as part of the larger plan to cease operations in the country. According to previous announcements, Huobi, China's largest exchange, will today completely shut down futures, contracts and other derivatives functions for all Chinese users. https://t.co/TNx4CvrzJ7 — Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) October 29, 2021 Huobi was the first exchange to announce that it would withdraw from mainland China due …

Bitcoin (BTC) has all but deleted any trace of the mining ban which saw hash rate dive 50% this year. According to the latest estimates, the network hash rate is now back at levels from May, just before China outlawed its Bitcoin mining industry. Hash rate recovers the dip Five months since the largest ever migration in Bitcoin’s history began, network fundamentals have staged a major comeback. Coming in leaps and bounds as miners relocated and started over, the recovery in hash rate and network difficulty is now approaching a seminal point. While impossible to measure in definitive terms, hash …

Hong Kong, one of the most significant and leading financial centers in the world, has played a large role in the development of cryptocurrencies. For instance, the Chinese territory has birthed some of the most established and successful crypto companies to date including the crypto derivatives exchange FTX, along with the digital asset platform Crypto.com. Yet, as trillions of dollars are traded regularly through crypto exchanges founded in Hong Kong, the “Vertical City” also contains an abundance of physical over-the-counter crypto shops as well. Henri Arslanian, PwC crypto lead and former chairman of the Fintech Association of Hong Kong, told …

China’s National Development and Reform Commission is seeking public opinion on the inclusion of crypto mining in its list of “phased-out” industries. The call for public comments by the country’s macroeconomic planning agency was contained in a release issued on Thursday. Back on Sept. 24, the agency added digital currency mining to its list of outdated industries following sweeping crackdowns by authorities in Beijing against crypto miners. The move offered a definitive stance by the commission after seemingly going back and forth on the issue for the last two years. As part of the calls for public comments, the agency’s …

Chinese online retail giant JD.com is diving into the nonfungible token, or NFT, industry by introducing a special NFT series for its annual JD Discovery conference. Using its proprietary blockchain platform, JD.com will be distributing commemorative NFT certificates to attendees of the JDD 2021 event in Beijing, the Chinese news agency Sina Finance reported on Wednesday. Specifically, JD.com will issue one NFT for free to anyone who signs up for the JDD 2021 conference between Monday and Nov. 22 through the WeChat mini program on the event’s official website. According to the report, the NFT series features a set of …

It’s been 150 days since China banned Bitcoin (BTC) mining — and BTC price action has only benefited as a result. Five months ago, China caused a considerable but not unsurprising stir by doubling down on its hostile environment policy toward cryptocurrency. Bitcoiners to China: Thanks for the ban Just like every “ban” before it, China’s move against miners saw temporary price turbulence, matching the biggest physical upheaval in Bitcoin’s history. As miners powered down and relocated out of China, Bitcoin’s network hash rate fell 50%, with difficulty slowly adjusting for the changes in the months that followed. Since then, …

The rapid growth of mainstream attention toward cryptocurrencies has forced the hands of numerous governments to create their digital alternatives. Over the past few years, interest from various jurisdictions has been pointed towards central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) — digital versions of government-issued fiat. Given their capacity to use blockchain technology to facilitate a simplified fiscal policy — not to mention calibrate privacy features and even provide cross-border banking services to the unbanked — CBDCs continue to gain even more attention from various governments worldwide. Already, surveys show more than 80% of central banks are researching CBDCs, with some working …