American fast-food giants like Starbucks and McDonald’s are reportedly not participating in China’s ongoing digital yuan tests. According to an Oct. 14 report by news agency Sina Finance, China’s central bank digital currency, or CBDC, is still being piloted on a “small scale,” primarily involving the retail and catering industry. As reported, a number of foreign merchants, which were rumored to be part of China’s CBDC tests, are actually not using the digital yuan for payment so far. Xiong’an, one of the major Chinese cities piloting the digital yuan, reportedly had 19 companies involved in its CBDC pilot, including Starbucks, …

Russian financial authorities have confirmed the government’s purported plans to issue the central bank digital currency, or CBDC. On Oct. 13, the Bank of Russia released a consultation paper on the development of the digital Russian ruble. In the statement, the central bank said that the digital ruble can become an “additional form of money alongside cash and non-cash.” The establishment of Russia’s CBDC project will require the creation of additional payment infrastructure, the bank said. The bank also said that the digital ruble will have “all the necessary properties to perform the functions of money.” The project’s timing will …

Japan needs to adapt its laws to issue a central bank digital currency, according to a local financial official. Kozo Yamamoto, head of the Liberal Democratic Party’s council on financial affairs and a former official at the Ministry of Finance, believes that Japan must revise a law stipulating the Bank of Japan’s (BoJ) mandate and responsibilities regarding the development of a CBDC. According to an Oct. 12 Reuters report, Yamamoto said that potential amendments to the BoJ law would be a good opportunity to consider other changes like adding job creation to the central bank’s mandate. The official also stated …

Co-founder and managing partner at Electric Capital, Avichal Garg, is convinced the only way for the U.S. to catch up with China in the digital currency war is by embracing privacy-focused cryptocurrency. According to Garg, the Chinese are already far ahead of the U.S. in the digital currency race – their DCEP, or Digital Currency Electronic Payment, is due to launch by the end of the year. That is why developing a US digital dollar might not be enough to compete, given the long time it will take to develop it. “The Chinese system [...] is going to be out …

The tech and payments-focused subsidiary of Chinese e-commerce company JD.com has entered into a partnership with the Digital Currency Research Institute of the People’s Bank of China. Local media reported on Sept. 21 that JD Digital Technology and the Digital Currency Research Institute will promote the development of mobile applications and blockchain platforms that are in line with PBoC’s forthcoming central bank digital currency. The two entities will also promote the creation of wallets that support China’s digital currency. The mobile applications will reportedly support the digital renminbi and they will be integrated with JD Group’s existing platforms and services. …

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 …

From the Chinese government’s perspective, cryptocurrencies are not considered legal tender; instead, they are categorized under a type of “virtual commodity," but some industry players believe the Blockchain Service Network (BSN) infrastructure can stimulate the development of virtual currencies like a CBDC. During an interview with Cointelegraph, Eden Dhaliwal, Global Managing Director at Conflux Network, a layer-1 blockchain protocol and the only state-endorsed public blockchain project in China, stated that the government of China is highly motivated to launch a CBDC to “dominate the digital commerce landscape and make the economy future-ready.” The BSN is a major blockchain interoperability infrastructure …

Three to five nations worldwide will entirely replace their fiat currency with a central bank digital currency, or CBDC, by 2030, a European think tank predicts. Dutch fintech-focused non-profit think tank dGen released a report devoted to geopolitical trends of CBDCs on Sept. 9. Titled “CBDCs: Geopolitical Ramifications of a Major Digital Currency,” the 30-page report takes a deep dive on the status of major global fiat currencies like the United States dollar, the euro, and China’s yuan. Compiled with support from institutions like the European Central Bank (ECB), Standard Chartered Bank, and the Frankfurt School, the report makes some …

Eswar Prasad, a professor of Trade Policy at Cornell University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, believes that even though China’s digital yuan will enhance the renminbi’s role as an international payment currency, it will “hardly put a dent” in the US dollar’s status as the dominant currency. In an opinion piece published in Project Syndicate, Prasad states that the Chinese government should keep reforming the country’s financial markets and remove restrictions on capital flow to put both China’s CBDC and national cross-border payments system in the global sphere to strengthen its adoption. According to the professor, the …

The People’s Bank of China is planning to put its digital currency to use at the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing. According to a Reuters report, Sun Guofeng, the head of the monetary policy department at PBoC, said that the bank does not have a timetable for the rollout of the digital currency. However, going by Sun’s statement, PBoC is likely to launch it before the 2022 Winter Olympic Games as they plan to use it during the international sports event. The news comes as China is ramping up pilots for the digital yuan. At present, the Chinese central …

The United States is losing the "technological cold war" to China due to its tough regulatory approach to blockchain and cryptocurrency-related companies, a senior executive at Ripple believes. In an opinion article for The Hill on Aug. 21, Chris Larsen, co-founder and chairman at major crypto payments firm Ripple, said that China’s digital currency leadership is a “once-in-a-century opportunity” to replace the U.S. dollar with the digital yuan as the world’s reserve currency. Larsen set out the main reasons for China winning the U.S. in the ongoing technological struggle. Namely, China has “already achieved near universal use of digital payments” …