The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) and the Shanghai commerce commission have just released a statement that supports the development of blockchain technology in the country. The statement highlighted blockchain’s importance in solving problems regarding information asymmetry in trade finance.
It also underscores blockchain’s role in addressing the proof of trade authenticity, a problem that the technology can solve through its transparent nature and immutable ledger. Lastly, both entities pointed out that financial sectors and the shipping industry stand to gain from developing blockchain due to the aforementioned advantages, Reuters reported.
The statement comes in the wake of Chinese President Xi Jinping endorsing blockchain adoption in multiple sectors. As mentioned earlier, financial institutions are one of the sectors that can greatly benefit from blockchain technology as it can cut down operational cost, while simultaneously streamlining thousands of transactions.
Countries trying to create their own CBDC
Blockchain is also poised to help the PBoC create its own digital currency (CBDC) that aims to push the global adoption of the yuan. China has recently passed cryptography legislation that will come into effect in January 2020. The law aims to address legal and regulatory challenges related to cryptography - a key component of blockchain technology.
But it’s not just China who means to create its own CBDC. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced a few days ago that the digital version of the lira is slated for completion by the end of 2020. Turkey’s economy took a massive hit last year when inflation rates and mass borrowing nearly cost the country a financial crisis.
In a bid to shield itself from such an incident, Turkey aims to migrate to the digital space to attract foreign investors and establish itself as a crypto leader. Just east of Turkey, the same evolution is happening.
Libra still faces massive resistance on multiple fronts
In the world of the corporate elites, Facebook is still hard at work in trying to convince U.S. regulators and legislators to give the go-ahead to its own cryptocurrency called Libra. Libra is one of the major reasons why countries are clamoring to create their own state-backed digital currency and are currently being perceived as a massive threat to central banks. The EU will be convening today how it should approach Libra, with some even suggesting that the stablecoin should not see the light of day.
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