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According to reports, over $315,000 worth of the digital yuan e-CNY is transacted daily at the Winter Olympic Games in China. A top official at the People’s Bank of China made this disclosure, saying both foreigners and locals spent around 2 million yuan. Furthermore, the official, Mu Changchun, also stated that foreigners use the digital yuan with hardware wallets, while locals opted for software wallets.
Although the PBoC executive put the daily transacted e-CNY figure at over $300K, he stated that it was difficult to provide exact numbers. As he put it:
“I have a rough idea that (there are) several, or a couple of million RMB (yuan) of payments every day, but I don’t have exact numbers yet.”
Back in April 2021, Chinese authorities announced that athletes and foreign visitors at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics would be privy to e-CNY. The sporting event began earlier this month, and officials have been paying attention to the daily digital yuan transactions.
However, digital yuan issuance at the Olympics event is not without some controversy. It has contributed to the tension between China and the US, with the latter expressing concerns over espionage and spying. In fact, last year, American Senators Marsha Blackburn, Roger Wicker, and Cynthia Lummi urged the US Olympic Committee to ban any usage of e-CNY at the event.
