Cryptocurrency stablecoins could become systemically important overnight, says United States Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, and that’s why the Fed is determined to get its own central bank digital currency right. CBDCs are the banking industry’s answer to cryptocurrency stablecoins. While they are often hosted on the blockchain, they share little in the way of philosophical parity with their decentralized counterparts. CBDCs will be overseen by the banks that issue them and will be regulated under the laws of their respective jurisdictions. Speaking in an interview with Yahoo Finance, Powell said advances in technology had enabled private entities to create …

Central bank digital currencies have been an integral part of progressive discussions within the cryptocurrency community. CBDCs are virtual representations of the fiat currency of a particular country. They are often based on blockchain technology and are issued and regulated by the official monetary organization of the country. The feature that makes them different from cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) is that CBDCs are backed by the central bank’s deposits of the country’s currency and are regulated by the central bank, while cryptocurrencies are not. Cointelegraph discussed with Thomas Trépanier, director of business development for Roxe at Apifiny …

China’s efforts to develop a centrally issued digital currency took a leap forward on Sunday as the state-owned Agricultural Bank of China launched the first digital yuan ATMs. Customers at select branches within the Shenzen region have reportedly begun spending and converting the digital yuan they received as part of China’s “red envelope” lottery, which saw $3 million worth of the new currency gifted to 100,000 local citizens. The ATMs reportedly allow the deposit and withdrawal of digital yuan via a smartphone app and allow users to convert cash and savings to and from the central bank digital currency. The …

Programs to pilot and encourage widespread adoption of China's central bank digital currency, known as Digital Currency Electronic Payment or the digital yuan, are continuing apace. As a New Year's offering, the city of Shenzhen is offering its residents the option to register to take part in a municipal lottery, as of last week Friday, with registrations closing this morning, Monday, at 10 am local time. Those interested were able to sign up for the lottery using the iShenzhen event registration platform, according to an announcement by the Shenzhen government. The lottery is, strictly speaking, not a competition but is …

The Chinese government is not seeking to replace existing fiat currencies with its own digital currency, according to a former governor of the People’s Bank of China, or PBoC. Zhou Xiaochuan, the president of the Chinese Finance Association and former PBoC governor, claimed that China’s digital yuan is not intended to replace global fiat currencies like the United States dollar and the euro, the South China Morning Post reported on Dec. 14. Also known as a digital currency electronic payment, or DCEP, China’s digital yuan is purely designed to transform cross-border trade and investment, Zhou said. Zhou contrasted China’s digital …

People in China have conducted roughly 20,000 transactions through e-commerce company JD.com in a trial of the country’s digital yuan. According to local media outlet Global Times, JD.com reported that 80% of participants born in the 1980s and 1990s used the platform to conduct transactions in the digital currency starting on Friday evening, with at least one transaction larger than $1,527. The e-commerce site also reported the numbers as the city of Suzhou conducted a real-world trial for digital yuan at the “Double Twelve” shopping festival, in which 10,000 physical storefront locations participated. The trial in Suzhou is one of …

Bitcoin being regarded as “sound money” is a common refrain among many proponents of the popular cryptocurrency. With a finite supply of 21 million and a network secured by over 120 exahashes per second of computing power, the consensus among industry commentators has often leaned toward it becoming a global monetary superpower. Barely a decade into its existence, Bitcoin’s inferred value is already the 11th-largest global monetary base. Earlier in November, Bitcoin became larger than the Russian ruble for the first time in history. While fiat currencies buckle under economic strain exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, Bitcoin (BTC) has continued …

David Roche, president and global strategist at Independent Strategy, believes that China’s digital yuan has “a long way” before it will become able to challenge the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency, CNDC reports Nov. 2. According to Roche, China’s central bank digital currency, or CBDC, could hypothetically beat the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency, but it would take a “very, very long time.” The strategist reportedly emphasized that the euro accounts for a “miserable” 18%–20% of all global trade, while the Chinese yuan composes 2% of international trade settlements. He said: “Dethroning the dollar — which the euro …

China’s digital currency approach will favor its domestic retail system and prevent the dollarization of the economy according to one former senior official. Zhou Xiaochuan, the president of the Chinese Finance Association and former governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), told attendees at a Eurasia Forum conference on Oct. 27 that the central bank’s focus in creating a digital currency differed considerably from that of the countries in the Group of Seven — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K., and the U.S. According to Xiaochuan, the G7 was mainly concerned with “the challenges raised by Libra, Bitcoin, …

Japanese banking officials continue to voice concern over China’s progress in the development of its central bank digital currency. Kenji Okamura, vice-finance minister for Japan’s international affairs, warned the global community of the potential risks of China’s digital yuan, Reuters reported Oct. 9. Okamura said that China’s digital yuan initiative is “moving at a relatively fast pace” as the Chinese government presumably aims to be the first global jurisdiction to adopt a CBDC. “First-mover advantage is something we should be afraid of,” Okamura said at a digital seminar backed by the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, adding: This advantage …

Retail central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, do not require the use of blockchain technology, according to executives at major European central banks. Thomas Moser, an alternate member of the governing board at Swiss National Bank, and Deutsche Bundesbank’s Martin Diehl discussed the state of CBDCs at the European Blockchain Convention Virtual 2020 conference on Monday. During the online panel discussion, both Diehl and Moser seemed to agree that global retail CBDC projects do not need blockchain, citing a number of reasons. Moser said that the primary use cases for blockchain intend to provide trust when a project has no …

China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) known as the digital yuan should be regulated in line with cash-related laws, according to a senior exec at the country’s central bank. In an opinion article on Sept. 14, Fan Yifei, a deputy governor of the People's Bank of China (PBoC), outlined the major regulatory principles for the operation of the digital yuan. the digital representation of the official currency of the People’s Republic of China. According to Fan, the digital renminbi is legally compensatory to the traditional fiat currency. In the article, the deputy governor outlined that the digital RMB is “mainly …