An update on the adoption of Chinese digital currency ‘e-CNY’ has been made public by the Peoples’ Bank of China (PBOC). The report suggests that since the launch of e-CNY, the centrally governed digital currency has been able to attract more than 261 million users. At the same time, e-CNY has so far executed transactions worth more than US$ 13.78 Billion.
China had to sacrifice a lot for making sure that whenever it launches regulated digital currency i.e. e-CNY, the same is vastly adopted. China was the biggest Bitcoin miner in the world but the e-CNY project required it to ban Bitcoin mining. At the same time, China banned cryptocurrencies altogether for the ultimate success of e-CNY. For China, the actions were necessary but for the rest of the world, it was a planned attempt to destroy the digital currency industry globally.
Anyhow, China implemented its decisions and after implementing them it launched e-CNY. The ground was set and all that was required was to see whether e-CNY would be able to attract public interest.
A month ago the official launch of e-CNY was initiated in Shenzhen, Shanghai, Dalian, Xiongan, Changsha, Suzhou, Xian, and Hainan.
Now an update has been made public by PBOC’s Financial Markets Head, Zou Lan. In this update, PBOC revealed that e-CNY has developed a user-based spreading over 261 million users in mainland China. PBOC further told that there have been more than 13.78 billion dollars worth of transactions executed through e-CNY so far. The number of merchants accepting e-CNY in China too has increased up to 8 million.
China was amongst the few countries of the world which had successfully launched a central bank digital currency (CBDC). It took more than 2 years approximately for China to start testing its CBDC i.e. e-CNY. Initially, e-CNY was handed over to the public free of cost under lotteries and give-away schemes. A handful of merchants were also taken aboard for accepting e-CNY as payments. For more than one and a half years, CBDC tests were going on until PBOC launched a digital wallet app for e-CNY.
The launch of the digital wallet app for e-CNY sparked a wildfire amongst Chinese people. In a matter of a few days, e-CNY’s digital app became China’s most downloaded app ever. Currently, the app can be downloaded at different operating systems on mobiles which also include iOS, Windows, and Android as well.
According to the update of PBOC, it seems that so far China would be proud of the harshest decisions it was inclined to take. However, the problem would arise when China would want to take e-CNY to the global stage. China has made aggrieved millions of people within the decentralized digital currency community. It would therefore seem impossible for e-CNY to attract users outside China.