China’s new digital currency ‘isn’t bitcoin and is not for speculation’

Mu Changchun, central bank official in charge of plan for virtual yuan, also reveals that it will not need the backing of a basket of currencies

He did not mention Facebook’s cryptocurrency project Libra, which is scheduled to be launched next year and will be backed by a basket of underlying assets

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Mu Changchun, the head of the People’s Bank of China’s digital currency research institute, said China’s new digital currency was different to bitcoin. Photo: Reuters

Published: 6:00pm, 22 Dec 2019Updated: 4:54pm, 21 May 2020

The Chinese central bank official in charge of a new sovereign digital currency said it would not be open to speculation like other cryptocurrencies, shedding some light on a plan that is still largely shrouded in secrecy.

Mu Changchun, head of the People’s Bank of China’s digital currency research institute, on Saturday said it would be “a digital form of the yuan”, there would be no speculation on its value, and it would not need the backing of a basket of currencies, according to the official Shanghai Securities News.

“The currency is not for speculation. It is different to bitcoin or stable tokens, which can be used for speculation or require the support of a basket of currencies,” Mu said.

He did not mention Facebook’s cryptocurrency project Libra, which is scheduled to be launched next year and will be backed by a basket of underlying assets.

The currency is not for speculation. It is different to bitcoin or stable tokens, which can be used for speculation or require the support of a basket of currencies

Mu Changchun

The veteran central bank official said the top-level design, formulation, functional research and testing of the Digital Currency Electronic Payment had been completed. The next step was to roll out pilot programmes before the digital currency was launched, according to the report.

'So there will be no fun in it'

Chinese internet users were unimpressed with the news there would be no speculating on the virtual currency.