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Author: Admin | 2025-04-27
South Central Morning Post article on returning to Suzhou - indicates that most people are happy with Alipay and WeChat Pay.While payment volumes, when data is released, indicate that the Digital Yuan has grown in terms of payment volume from its beginnings, the size of transaction throughput (a claimed $250bn in the first half of 2023) pales in comparison to the population and size of China and represented just 0.16% of all Chinese monetary volume. Still, it's a notable uptrend from the $14bn or so reported in the first two years of the e-CNY's initial start.Hong Kong has piloted e-CNY acceptance, with guides being released on the topic and favorable mentions in state media—showing the constant attention of the Chinese party-state to rolling out the e-CNY more fully.What are the privacy implications of the Digital Yuan?The privacy tiers of the Digital Yuan mean that the central bank has control and access over personal identifiers and should also know each account balance. While the Digital Yuan offers an offline version of hardware smart cards that can transmit value over NFC, these cards can only be loaded with smaller amounts.Not only does the Central Bank likely know each balance and each wallet account along with personal information needed to create those accounts, but it will also be able to expire monies, as it did with the airdrops it used to trial the e-CNY.What are the Chinese state's goals with the Digital Yuan?While the Digital Yuan is not claimed to try to replace Alipay and WeChat Pay, China has had issues with the tech sector and has tried to rein it by detaining founders and preventing IPOs from going ahead. The banking system is well-used to working with regulators and law enforcement, providing a loyal backdrop that anchors the Chinese financial system - it would perhaps be preferable to get China away from a duopoly of potentially unreliable technology partners and towards a sector that the Chinese party-state has long supervised and used to fund the national stimulus. China's main goal with the e-CNY, the retail CBDC, is to create another Chinese domestic payment option.The Digital Yuan was rolled out to prevent monetary substitution from Libra and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, which was one of the original reasons. In a progress paper from the People's Bank of China, cryptocurrencies are specifically cited as tools that "pose potential risks to financial security and social stability."China
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