Last week, US Senator Pat Toomey wrote to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Secretary of State Tony Blinken, expressing his concern about China’s central bank’s digital currency, the digital yuan.
He wrote to Yellen and Blinken, saying, “I write to solicit your engagement on a monumental development in Beijing this week: the rollout of the world’s first major central bank digital currency (CBDC) to a foreign audience.”
“Beijing has also built the first state-backed worldwide distributed ledger infrastructure, the Blockchain-based Services Network (BSN),” according to the senator. Senator Toomey also addressed China’s cryptocurrency crackdown, saying, “China’s crackdown creates an opportunity for the United States to be the trailblazer of crypto innovation, founded in individual liberty and other American and democratic principles.”
Senator Toomey also demanded that material be submitted to his office by March 7 in nine different categories. They include information on how the digital yuan was dispersed, techniques used to promote eCNY acceptance by Chinese and non-Chinese people, the rate of eCNY adoption by foreigners, total eCNY issuance after the Olympic Games, lessons for the US government, and potential threats to US interests.
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC), China’s central bank, announced in January that the digital yuan now has over 261 million users and that transactions worth nearly $14 billion have been made using the central bank’s digital currency. China announced 15 national pilot zones and 164 companies for blockchain initiatives last week.
Do you also agree with the Senator’s thoughts? Comment below.
