China’s official digital currency is expected to launch anytime soon. The central bank-backed digital currency would provide financial regulators in the country a tool to keep check of money flows. Many experts have argued that that issuing a national digital currency would give too much control to authorities as they can keep track of each transaction a user makes.
China’s digital currency is not like bitcoin.
A national digital currency is not a bit similar to any decentralized cryptocurrency like bitcoin because, with bitcoin, a user has complete financial privacy as to where he decides to spend his money. With a national digital currency, regulators can keep an eye on each transaction a user makes. The Chinese Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP) is a centralized digital currency.
PBoC aims to keep a balance between privacy and AML laws
According to the Reuters report, Mu Changchun, head of the People’s Bank of China’s digital currency research institute, said that they know the demand from the general public is to keep anonymity by using paper money and coins. The bank will give those people who demand anonymity in their transactions, he added.
Mu also said that at the same time, they would keep the balance between the “controllable anonymity” and anti-money laundering, counter terrorist financing (CTF), and other financial frauds.
