At the Olympics, foreign users are more likely to utilise hardware e-CNY wallets, but local users are more likely to use software wallets.
According to new claims quoting officials from the People’s Bank of China, the 2022 Winter Olympics participants, tourists, and organisers might spend more than $300,000 every day in China’s digital yuan.
According to Mu Changchun, director-general of the PBoC’s Digital Currency Research Institute, the e-CNY, China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC), is utilised to make 2 million yuan ($316,000) or more worth of payments every day. According to Reuters, the source offered the information during a webinar organised by the Atlantic Council on Tuesday.
“I have a rough notion that there are several, or a couple of million digital yuan of payments made every day,” Mu said, adding that the number of transactions done by Chinese nationals and foreign attendees has yet to be broken down.
Foreign users, however, are more likely to use hardware wallets, alluding to e-CNY payment cards, which resemble credit cards but lack the traditional chip and magnetic strip. Domestic users are the primary users of software wallets, according to Mu.
Given that overall digital yuan transaction volumes had reached $13 billion by November 2021 since the Chinese CBDC initially opened in April 2020, the reported amount is a major contribution to China’s CBDC expansion.
The PBoC has been widely advocating the usage of the Chinese CBDC at the 2022 Winter Olympics. International visitors can exchange their foreign banknotes into e-CNY or regular yuan banknotes at a handful of special ATMs put up by the state-controlled Bank of China at various important locations during the Games.
The availability of the digital yuan has sparked concerns from throughout the world about cybersecurity and privacy, with some US lawmakers apparently considering the digital yuan as a “tremendous security threat to individual users.” Despite offering a huge possibility to democratise payment systems, British spy director Jeremy Fleming claimed in late 2021 that the CBDC may allow Beijing to monitor users and manage worldwide transactions.
While actively promoting CBDC use, China has maintained a strong anti-cryptocurrency position, with the government planning to outlaw all cryptocurrency transactions in September 2021.
As many as 2 million crypto mining devices are locked in China’s former crypto mining hotspot, Sichuan province, according to recent sources, after the government banned operations. Miners intending to relocate their operations to North America are said to have lost millions of dollars while attempting to transfer crypto mining equipment.
Disclaimer: These are the writer’s opinions and should not be considered investment advice. Readers should do their own research.
