On Wednesday, China’s central bank governor, Yi Gang, gave an update on the latest digital yuan statistics after almost a year of relative blackout on stats. By late June, the central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot had reached a total of 950 million transactions, up from 360 million in August 2022.
According to Mr. Yi, the cumulative value of eCNY transactions has now hit 1.8 trillion yuan (about $250 bn), an 18 fold increase from the 100.04 billion ($13.9 bn) last August. However, previous updates showed declines in the average transaction value, whereas the latest figures point to a massive increase to 1,895 yuan ($265), compared with 278 renminbi ($39) in 2022.
This substantial surge could indicate an increase in corporate use cases, which we predicted last month when the Shanghai Clearing House announced it would support the digital yuan for wholesale commodities transactions. Although China has been recently working on various retail experiments, it has also ramped up wholesale uses to encourage further adoption and improve its statistics.
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