Major Chinese technology and commerce firms are starting to open up regarding their involvement in developing the digital yuan. Ant Group and Tencent Holdings revealed the extent of their collaboration with the People’s Bank of China in developing the digital yuan at the Digital China Summit, an annual trade fair in the city of Fuzhou in southeastern Fujian province. According to the South China Morning Post, Ant Group started working with the PBoC on the digital yuan in 2017, years before China officially debuted digital currency pilots in 2020. In June 2019, China’s digital currency institute reportedly used Ant’s mobile …

JD.com has been using China’s Digital Currency Electronic Payment, or DCEP, system to pay the salaries of some employees since January. The e-commerce firm revealed the news on Sunday while announcing its participation in the one-year DCEP trial show at the fourth Digital China Summit in Fuzhou slated for Sunday and Monday. Commenting on its digital yuan adoption journey, the company stated that apart from paying staff salaries, JD has also utilized the DCEP in business-to-business payments to partner firms as well as cross-bank settlements. As previously reported by Cointelegraph, JD Technology and Digital Currency Research Institute — the company’s …

Some of China’s largest state banks are actively promoting the digital yuan as a superior means of payment to the country’s two leading payment providers, Alipay and WeChat Pay. In a Monday report, Reuters revealed that six of China’s largest banks are promoting China’s nascent central bank-issued digital currency, or CBDC, in Shanghai ahead of an online shopping festival on May 5. The banks are urging retail outlets and consumers to download the digital wallet and make purchases using the CBDC, also known as e-CNY. This would bypass the current payment methods of choice for millions of shoppers, Ant Group’s …

The virtual 7th Asia-Pacific Climate Change Adaptation Forum was jointly hosted by the Ministry of the Environment of Japan and the Asia Pacific Adaptation Network with the theme “Enabling Resilience for All: The Critical Decade to Scale-up Action.” The forum took place in March and was held to formulate national adaptation planning for science and technology, and energy and fiscal policies that consider the interlinkages between climate change, health and biodiversity. These nature- and ecosystem-based policies will serve as the basis for the Asia-Pacific region’s contributions to the Leaders Summit on Climate in the United States; the United Nations Biodiversity …

The big news this week happened on April 16th, when a major power outage in Xinjiang wreaked havoc on the BTC hash rate. According to local sources, the hash rates on Ant Mine Pool fell by 21.93%, BTC.com by 18.5%, Binance Mine Pool by 22%, and Huobi Mine Pool by 25.5%. Reports from Cointelegraph linked it with safety inspections resulting from a mine accident in the western-most province. Western China has a strong presence in the mining space due to cheap electricity and equally affordable real estate. Despite miners originally stating the impact would only last 1 to 2 days, …

Beijing’s bid to better control money laundering and illicit transactions through a fully traceable central bank digital currency could pose a threat to the country’s popular gambling hub Macau. A hotspot for tourists — of which 70% come from mainland China — the region’s gambling business could reportedly be adversely impacted by China’s use of a digital yuan to clamp down on illegal money flows and keep its capital account better sealed. Revenues from Macau’s casino junkets — the longtime beneficiaries of Macau’s position as the only administrative region in China where gambling is legal — had already been squeezed …

Following the high-profile appointment of Brian Brooks to CEO of Binance.US, it has come to light that the Malta-based parent company has reshuffled its executive leadership by appointing Terence Zeng as head of Greater China. Zeng reportedly graduated from John Hopkins University and possesses a law degree from the University of Hong Kong, though his online presence is limited. He has been heading Binance’s Greater China division since at least early April, according to an interview with Chain News, a China-based technology publication. In the interview, dated April 7, Zeng introduces himself as the head of Binance Greater China. “I …

Electric Capital co-founder and partner Curtis Spencer implied that the Bitcoin network may owe its continued existence to the grace of world governments. In a panel at the Collision web summit on Tuesday, Spencer said lawmakers are the ones giving Bitcoin (BTC) a chance to grow by not imposing harsher restrictions on mining operations in their respective countries. The Electric Capital executive was speaking on the state of investing in cryptocurrency in 2021, alongside Michael Jordan of Galaxy Digital, Kartik Talwar of A Capital, Ash Egan of Accomplice, Tara Tan of IDEO CoLab Ventures and moderator Min Teo of Consensys. …

China’s central bank is looking to enable foreign athletes and visitors to use the country’s digital currency during the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022, according to a top central bank official. Li Bo, deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, said that the upcoming Winter Olympics could potentially become the first test of China’s central bank digital currency, or CBDC, by foreign users. “For the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics, we were trying to make e-CNY available not only to domestic users, but also to international athletes and like visitors,” Li said Sunday at a CNBC panel at the Boao …

Popular crypto market analyst Willy Woo noted reports identifying the blackouts were published late last week, with the power outages occurring to facilitate safety inspections in response to a recent flooding accident at a local coal mine that saw 21 miners temporarily trapped underground after power and communications went down. According to the Cambridge Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index, or CBECI, Xinjiang represents nearly one-quarter of the global hash rate. The analyst noted that yesterday saw the largest daily drop in total Bitcoin network hash rate since November 2017, with hash rate plummeting from 172 million terahashes per second to less …

Li Bo, recently appointed deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, or PBoC, reportedly spoke on the benefits of crypto as an investment tool while highlighting regulatory uncertainty in the country surrounding digital assets. According to Chinese journalist Colin Wu, Li made the comments at the Boao Forum in southern China on Sunday. The PBoC head said there are still regulatory risks for the central bank, citing its previous ban on initial coin offerings and cryptocurrency exchanges. Li reportedly said the PBoC will “continue to maintain the current measures and practices” as it explores any potential change in regulation, …

The hashing power of top Bitcoin mining pools located in Northwest China appears to have plummeted due to a regional blackout to enable safety inspections. The news was reported by Wu Blockchain, the author of Chinese crypto newsletter Wublock, who noted significant drops in the hash rate of several major pools — with Antpool crashing 24.5%, Binance Pool dipping 20%, BTC.com falling 18.9% and Poolin dropping by 33%. The hashrate of Bitcoin mining pools plummeted in 24 hours. Antpools fell by 24.5%, https://t.co/1YRYr58dLy fell by 18.9%, Poolin fell by 33%, Binance pools fell by 20%. The reason is that Northwest …