“As China moves closer to rolling out the world’s first major sovereign digital currency, speculation over the global implications has reached a fever pitch.
Historian Niall Ferguson is calling the digital yuan a “potentially fatal challenge” to decades of American financial hegemony. Franklin Templeton’s Michael Hasenstab says it could undermine the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency. Joe Biden’s White House is studying the potential threat to U.S. interests.
Yet talk to people who’ve actually used the digital yuan in China, and you’re more likely to get a different response: shrugs of indifference.
In Shenzhen, the high-tech metropolis that just extended China’s largest digital yuan trial, participants interviewed by Bloomberg showed little interest in switching from mobile payment systems run by Ant Group Co. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. that have already replaced cash in much of the country. Some balked at the possibility a digital yuan might give authorities easier access to real-time data on their financial lives.”
Read the full article @ Bloomberg:
