We bring opinions on the Chinese digital initiative
Since May, China has been introducing its own digital currency (the DCEP) in the market, whose originality is obvious:
it is the first cryptocurrency issued by a central bank (in this case, the People's Bank of China).
For the Chinese government, DCEP can offer a digital alternative to the renminbi (or yuan) that powers its public data infrastructure and machine learning
- as the Xi Jinping policy suggests, it is more important to think about information and the presence of the state than just about the transaction.
This is a strategy more supported by the regulatory framework of Blockchain (a record of movement of the hyperdetailed and self-feeding digital currency) than necessarily having a state-sponsored bitcoin.
Could the digital novelty pose a threat to the dollar and lead to the top of a currency that today can correspond to less than 2% of international transactions?
An initiative like the Chinese one could mean a less volatile digital currency: supported by a central bank, it can serve as a means of exchanging goods between countries and paying taxes and fees, firm ground for any type of currency around of the world.
The battleground of the digital renminbi (as well as the traditional version) lies in its ability to attract governments to the point of becoming an important currency not only in transactions between countries, but in their reserves, a process that may still take time to bear fruit.
According to Henry M. Paulson Jr., a former US treasurer, this may have very little to do with digital currency or not: DCEP goes as far as the renminbi can reach.
So far, the Chinese rise in all its dimensions has taken place within the scope of the commercial and financial rules created in the post-war period by the United States", write scholars Andre Moreira Cunha, Andres Ferrari and Luiza Peruffo, from the Department of Economy and Relations Of the Federal University of Rio Gande do Sul (UFRGS). "China has not sought to change the status quo, but has adapted to it and has grown by betting on broad commercial and financial integration with the rest of the world," they conclude.
Although gaining momentum in the domestic market, DCEP still exists in a market of unequal opportunities
. "The dollar remains at the top of the monetary hierarchy, thanks to the power of the State that issues it, the institutional inertia and the weaknesses already demonstrated by possible competitors", conclude the authors.
