Cryptocurrency: GovCorp Digital Currencies = Weaponizable Money, For Them, Against You

grarpamp grarpamp at gmail.com
Tue Apr 27 03:27:16 PDT 2021


CBDC's: Do Not Want...


China's E-Commerce Giant JD.Com Starts Paying Some Workers In Digital Yuan

China's e-commerce giant, JD.com which directly competes with Jack
Ma's Alibaba, said on Sunday that it has started paying some staff in
digital yuan, the virtual version of the country’s physical currency
which according to some is set to overtake the US dollar and become
the world's next reserve currency.

JD said that it has provided technology and service support for
China’s e-CNY trial programs in Suzhou, Beijing and Chengdu, since
partnering with the People’s Bank of China last September.

As we have reported extensively, China has been busy experimenting
with digital currency over the past few months and is on track to
become the world’s first major economy to issue a digital version of
its fiat money, which could see a wider rollout at the 2022 Winter
Olympics in Beijing. In October, Shenzhen, a southern city known for
its progressive economic policies, doled out 10 million yuan worth of
digital currency to 500,000 residents, who could then use the money to
shop at certain online and offline retailers.

Several other large Chinese cities have followed Shenzhen’s suit. The
residents in these regions must apply through selected banks to start
receiving and paying by digital yuan.

As TechCrunch notes, the electronic yuan initiative is a collective
effort involving China’s regulators, commercial banks and technology
solution providers. At first glance, the scheme still mimics how
physical yuan is circulating at the moment; under the direction of the
central bank, the six major commercial banks in China, including ICBC,
distribute the digital yuan to smaller banks and a web of tech
solution providers, which could help bring more use cases to the new
electronic money.

Of course, that means that the digital yuan is anything but a
cryptocurrency, and is merely a more digital version of the currency
already in circulation. In fact, all that the digital yuan is
achieving is the forced conversion of all paper currency into digital
token format, which allows Beijing infinitesimal control over every
single transaction, and revealing the identity of every single
currency holder - precisely the opposite of what cryptos stand for.

Of course, since China is an authoritarian regime where companies have
to comply with Beijing's demands to be "Jack Ma'd", China’s major tech
companies have actively participated in the buildout of the digital
yuan ecosystem, which will help the central government better track
money flows even better.

Aside from JD.com, video streaming platform Bilibili, on-demand
services provider Meituan and ride-hailing app Didi have also begun
accepting digital yuan for user purchases. Gaming and social
networking giant Tencent became one of the “digital yuan operators”
and will take part in the design, R&D and operational work of the
electronic money. Jack Ma’s Ant Group, which is undergoing a major
overhaul following a stalled IPO, has also joined hands with the
central bank to work on building out the infrastructure to move money
digitally. Huawei, the telecom equipment titan debuted a wallet on one
of its smartphone models that allows users to spend digital yuan
instantaneously even if the device is offline.


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