China Crosses 2M Yuan in Daily CBDC Transactions During the Olympics

A report from Reuters highlighted that a top official from the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) detailed the use of China’s Central Bank Digital Currency, e-CNY in the country during the Beijing Winter Olympics. 

Millions in CBDC

According to the official, the e-CNY was used for making payments worth almost 2 million yuan on a daily basis, which translates to about $315,761 during the Olympics.

Although he specified that they are yet to decipher how much of all the transactions were made by citizens of the country and how many were made by attendants from outside China.

Mu Changchun, Director-General of the PBOC’s Digital Currency Research Institute also stated similarly:

“I have rough idea that (there are) several, or a couple of million RMB (yuan) of payments every day, but I don’t have exact numbers yet.

It seems all the foreign users are using hardware wallets. The software wallets are mainly used by the domestic users”

The extensive use of CBDCs was also possible thanks to the multiple ATMs set up across the Olympics bubble using which foreign currency was converted into e-CNY.

FXEmpire had recently reported about the same when the use of CBDCs exceeded the use of Visa during the Olympics despite the latter having contractual exclusivity for payments. 

However, there were many who raised concerns regarding the security of athletes and individuals using the CBDCs as they feared the PBOC could be tracking their information.

China Pushes CBDCs

The country that banned cryptocurrencies last year is heavily focused on transitioning into a digital currency state. The pilot at Winter Olympics was conducted in order to gauge the possibilities of eventually extending e-CNY overseas.

Thus, following China’s footsteps, many other countries are also looking to rather develop their own CBDCs than focus on regulating or even accepting crypto.

Just yesterday Russia began the first stage tests for its ‘Digital Ruble’ despite its ongoing discussion pertaining to the legal status of crypto in the country.

Similarly, India and Zambia too, are looking into CBDCs, although the former did place a 30% tax on crypto, the latter cited volatility risks as their reason to focus on digital currencies.

However, the Swiss National Bank surprisingly stated that it does not intend on issuing CBDCs as the risks outweigh the benefits.