It's an open secret that China has been dominating Bitcoin mining over the past years. If you look at 2019's year-end report of CoinShares, nearly 65 percent of total bitcoin hashrate was originated from China.
In-spite of imposing a severe ban and restriction on Bitcoin trading and other crypto currencies, the Chinese government has been fueling the overall mining business with their President Xi Jinping openly endorsing blockchain in Oct 2019.
Today, local sources in China reveal that one of the Nation's biggest bank, Agricultural Bank of China is working on a nation wide digital currency project. Article link:
https://www.theblockbeats.com/news/15355
The report suggests testing of a mobile app that supports People’s Bank of China (PBoC) digital currency, the DECP.
It is visible that the mobile app has various features related to digital currencies which includes QR codes, digital currency exchange, options to send and receive transactions and features to manage wallets.
China's Digital Currency Research Institute, which appears to lead the project, denied to verify the news or give a response.
None of the Chinese officials have given out a statement yet regarding these leaked photos.
If this is true, China will become officially world's first major economy to launch own digital currency, sadly controlled by the PBOC and will not remain a decentralized system.
The current COVID-19 outbreak feels like a big accelerator behind China's urgency to launch this project as many are fearful that traditional cash and coins can transmit Coronavirus.
China's stance is quite confusing as PBOC constantly keeps cracking down on trading of crypto currencies and have strictly banned banks from accepting digital currencies stating a high risk to financial stability.
While the world is still trying to figure out a way to combat CONVID-19, China is trying to sneak in a revolutionary technology.
What do you think?