philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Facebook’s digital currency has put China’s central bank on high alert

The People’s Bank of China is paying close attention to Libra, the digital currency Facebook has created. And it may inspire the bank to accelerate its plans to speed up its own project to develop a digital currency.

China’s central bank was one of the first central banks to begin studying digital currencies, back in 2014. Few details about the ongoing project have been revealed publicly. But if Libra takes off, we might see central banks across the world issue their own digital currencies to compete, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see China out in front. “We had an early start ... but lots of work is needed to consolidate our lead,” said Wang.

See the full story here: https://www.technologyreview.com/f/613932/facebooks-libra-digital-currency-chinas-central-bank-on-high-alert/?utm_campaign=the_download.unpaid.engagement&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=74501497&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--c-NuGD_Ra9MAcwSv_tYMGP427PTptGwtK3L-zH34Em1MgXeXPMIu3e_W-XtiwMNRXi9At1HZkj7rzBzhIRh8x4YILLA&_hsmi=74501497