Yesterday several Chinese news outlets, including those controlled by the state, said that some can now use the Chinese central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital yuan, within the Alipay app. Alipay is the largest digital payments wallet with more than a billion users. Although the e-CNY functionality is not available to all, it is enabled for a significant minority of Alipay users while the digital currency is still in its pilot phase.
Despite there being an anonymous version of the CBDC wallet, it appears it will be a poor substitute as a replacement for digital cash because of its limited functionality, as explained later.
In April, we reported that China had significantly expanded the number of users and pilot locations for the digital currency or DC/EP from four to ten cities plus the Winter Olympics locations.
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