Not even two weeks have passed since the great news from China flooded the crypto communities regarding Pesident Xi Jinping's bold statements in regards of China becoming, or wishing to become, the world leader in blockchain technology.
At that same time there was also mentioned across crypto media outlets that the communist country was already working on developing their digital national currency, the digital Yuan, for about five years and that not much time will pass until it will become a reality... to the people, for the people. Mu Changchun, the head of the digital currency research institute at the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) came out recently with much more details regarding the digital Yuan.
According to him the new digital currency will replace, of course, the existing coins and paper money and none of this will have any implications for inflation or monetary policy, declared Mu on Wednesday at a press conference in Hong Kong. The first to get the digital yuan will be, again of course, the banks and financial institutions of China. That's where everything comes from nowadays. It was also mentioned that there will be no interest rates on the new digital money.
“During the research period, and also the issuance period there will be a horse race approach. The front runner will take the whole market - who is more efficient, who can provide a better service to the public - they can survive in the future.”
Mu Changchun, Hong Kong, November 6, 2019
I'm not over yet with China though. Here's another interesting piece of news. In April this year, The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) of China "advised China" to eliminate crypto mining from the country. Recently though they turned around 180° and crypto mining is no longer on the black list of businesses that should be wiped out of the country. As of January 1, 2020 the "black catalog" will be enforced and crypto mining is not affected by it.
Who benefits from this turn of events? Bitmain, Canaan and Ebang, which are top crypto miners manufacturers from China. Moreover Hong Kong's securities watchdog has "prepared the papers" to regulate crypto exchanges in the country. What's the US doing meanwhile? Making life hard for exchanges.
Does all that mean financial freedom and more privacy for the Chinese people? No. There's tons of information on the internet regarding the "Big Brother" situation from China and I believe that the new digital Yuan will only help the country monitor on their citizens and control them even more.
Imagine living in a country with only digital currencies and no "paper money", where you have a social profile created by your state according to your daily activities and behavior and imagine wanting to leave the country, after you played too much games and been a bad boy on pornhub, wishing to "live free" in some other country. How will you exchange your digital Yuan, which will be totally under the control of banks and the state itself, and leave the country? How will you be able to leave if you have already been banned from owning Bitcoin for years, with which you could have been able to leave with and exchange to other national currency, almost anywhere on earth?
The past bans and fear generated by the communist country regarding cryptocurrencies and trading of such assets was only for the oligarchs to accumulate and get involved in the industry while the regulatory frameworks were prepared to benefit the state not the citizen. It's always about them and not you and unfortunately as time goes by Bitcoin and other privacy intended cryptocurrencies, as we knew them and wished them to be, become more and more regulated and I don't know how, but traceable as well. Where's the financial freedom and privacy then?
For more details regarding the information presented in the article you have my sources here:
https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/46049/hong-kongs-securities-watchdog-issuing-regulatory-framework-to-license-crypto-exchanges
Thanks for attention,
Adrian