BEIJING (Dispatches) - As China expands globally, seeking significant financial autonomy and less dependency on America amid its trade war with Washington, the country has long sought to wean itself from the U.S.-dollar dominated financial system.
Finally, after years of effort, China is gearing up to release the world’s first sovereign digital currency - DCEP (short for Digital Currency/Electronic Payments).
China’s central bank launched a trial program across four cities - Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiongan and Chengdu - to test the use of its digital currency, touted as incorporating some features of cryptocurrencies, but lacking the anonymity of such digital assets, the Digital Currency Research Institute of the People’s Bank of China confirmed to the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
The acknowledgement came in the wake of reports triggered by a spate of screenshots on social media that supposedly showed the DCEP wallet.
DCEP trial runs will be piloted to a small range of banks and end users, eventually spreading to a wider range amid improvements in the technology and system.
There are said to be three principal differences between DCEP and existing cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, according to Terry Liu, CEO of VoneChain Technology, a blockchain consultancy based in Shanghai, cited by Wired UK.
First, while Bitcoin is mined, meaning the source is decentralized and controlled by an algorithm, DCEP is government sanctioned and centralized.