Rumors are surfacing of an upcoming real-world test of the proposed Chinese digital yuan currency. According to Chinese publication Interchain Pulse, a promotion conference was held on April 22 in the city of Xiong’an, located close to Beijing. Government agencies, digital currency developers and merchants participating in the upcoming pilot were invited. The initiative is part of the Xiong’an Smart City program. It began on September 25, 2019 as an association of enterprises, higher education institutions, research institutes and technology companies. Its board of directors includes companies like Huawei, Tencent, Alibaba Group, Baidu and others. The conference was thus joined …

The Bank of China’s secretive digital currency tests have led to tremendous curiosity among Chinese citizens. Recently, the bank responded with an official explanation of the proposed digital Yuan and how it would work. A bank representative confirmed on the China Central Television on April 19 that the new digital currency (also referred to as DC/EP, for “digital currency/electronic payment”) pilot test has been carried out in the cities of Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiongan new area, Chengdu, and the future site of the winter Olympics. However the researcher stressed that these current tests do not imply that the digital Yuan has …

Screenshots of a purported pilot version of a wallet app for China’s forthcoming digital yuan are circulating on social media. Ling Zhang, executive director of M&A, Global Fiat, at cryptocurrency exchange Binance first shared the images on April 14, later retweeted by the exchange’s CEO, Changpeng Zhao. Screenshot ostensibly showing a new testing wallet app for the digital yuan. Source: @lingzh1220 Four cities selected for the trial According to Ling Zhang, the app is available for download in four cities selected for the initial trial — Shenzhen, Chengdu, Suzhou and Xiongan. She highlights the inclusion of Xiongan, a new metropolis …

The government of Hubei, the Chinese province at the epicenter of the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) outbreak, issued a report on Feb. 18 detailing measures taken against the disease. The officials revealed that they tracked both offline and online purchases of fever medicine to organize relief efforts. As the emergency situation shows no signs of slowing down, provincial officials have taken a set of measures to better control the outbreak. Pharmacies and medical institutions are now required to ask for valid ID from anyone purchasing fever medicine, presumably to treat the virus. In addition to newly enacted measures, the government began an …

The People’s Bank of China’s (PBoC) deputy director Mu Changchun said that the digital form of the yuan will be different to Bitcoin (BTC) and stablecoins. Chinese news outlet South China Morning Post reported on Dec. 22 that the head of the digital currency research institute at the PBoC said that China’s digital currency would be a digital form of the yuan with no room to speculate on its value, and without the backing of a basket of currencies. Mu explained: “The currency is not for speculation. It is different to bitcoin or stable tokens, which can be used for …

China’s digital currency approach will be favoring international payments and domestic retail system, a former senior official said. Zhou Xiaochuan, the president of the Chinese Finance Association and former governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), outlined two types of implementations of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) speaking at the 2019 Caixin Hengqin Forum, local publication Caixin reports Nov. 26. The first type is an electronic payment-oriented domestic retail system, while the second is international remittances for settlements between financial institutions. China will continue to focus on digital yuan, Zhou says Zhou — the longest-serving head of PBoC and …

Recently, the National People’s Congress in China cleared a new law that will allow local authorities to start regulating all of the country’s cryptography-related activities starting from Jan. 1, 2020. By creating a new regulatory framework, the Chinese government is looking to establish a uniform standard for mainstream application of cryptographic techniques and the management of passwords and other sensitive data. The initial proposal for the law was published all the way back in May. At the time, the rough draft focused quite strongly on government-centralized password management and did not mention crypto-related matters in detail, although, it is believed …

Stablecoin firm Tether announced the launch of a new stablecoin tied to the offshore Chinese yuan dubbed CNHT. According to an announcement on Sept. 9, Tether CNHT is pegged to the offshore yuan and available as an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain. The new currency joins Tether’s other stablecoins backed by U.S. dollars (USDT) and euro (EURT). What is the offshore Yuan? China’s national currency is officially called the renminbi. The currency’s unit is called the yuan, of which there are two kinds: offshore and onshore. The main difference between the two is that the offshore yuan can be …

Bitcoin price has seen a record inverse correlation with the Chinese yuan (CNY) this week, according to an analysis from Bloomberg on Sept. 6. This suggests that investors are using the digital currency as a hedge against the yuan’s falling value. Bitcoin/CNY correlation chart. Source: Bloomberg Weakening yuan causes price premium on bitcoin in China Further evidence that Bitcoin is being used as a hedge in China can be seen in the higher prices being paid in local exchanges when the yuan fell. According to London School of Economics researcher, Dr. Garrick Hileman: “You can see it in the premium …

Crypto exchange Bitfinex shareholder Zhao Dong has claimed that sister firm Tether plans to release a version of the stablecoin backed by a basket of commodities such as gold, crude oil and rubber. In private correspondence with Cointelegraph on Sept. 3, Dong said that the idea of issuing Tether (USDT) pegged to a commodities basket was being mooted in order to mitigate the risks associated with keeping large amounts of funds deposited in banks. “Tether is backed at least 83.75% by USD” Aside from the commodity stablecoin news, Dong commented on the long-standing controversy regarding Tether’s flagship USD-pegged stablecoin and …

Binance Research, the research arm of the major crypto platform Binance, has reported that no bank account will be necessary to use China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC). Loose coupling and anonymity Binance Research shared its findings on Aug 28. According to the report, China’s CBDC will be transferable without a bank due to its loosely coupled design. As explained by the researchers, a loosely coupled design refers to a system of components that do not all depend on each other. The upshot is that users will reportedly be able to transfer the CBDC to one another without needing a …

Jeremy Allaire, the CEO of blockchain-based, crypto-inclusive money transfer company Circle, has said that the firm has long believed major fiat currencies will eventually be tokenized. Significant digital currencies In an interview on Aug. 21 on the podcast Global Coin Research, Allaire said that Circle has thought for years that sovereign currencies would go digital. He added: “When we got started with Circle back in 2013, I think our belief has been that there will be significant non-sovereign digital currencies that grow in use and that will be attractive to people for a wide variety of reasons, and Bitcoin obviously …