PBoC refutes media reports on its cryptocurrency launch plans: Chinese State Media

The People’s Bank of China’s (PBoC) has reportedly refuted recent reports that it was launching a government-backed cryptocurrency in coming months, The Global Times said in a tweet.

The Global Times, China’s national English language newspaper, is under People’s Daily, which is the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China (CPC). Hu Xijin, the editor in chief of the Global Times, is believed to have close links with the government authorities, Cointelegraph noted.

Earlier this month, the central bank revealed its intention to accelerate the pace of the research and development of its digital currency in the forthcoming months. Soon after, several reports started surfacing that the PBoC was getting closer to launching its cryptocurrency, with some suggesting that the digital currency could be launched as early as November 11.

More recently, sources reportedly familiar with the central bank’s ongoing work revealed the first tier of institutions that will be initially issued the cryptocurrency, dubbed DC/EP (Digital Currency/Electronic Payments). This includes the China Construction Bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the Bank of China, the Agricultural Bank of China, Alibaba, Tencent, and Union Pay.

However, Mu Changchun, deputy director of the Paying Division of the PBoC and the new head of China’s cryptocurrency research lab, has provided some technical details of the project, according to Forbes.

Changchun said that the DC/EP was capable of handling 300,000 transactions per second, compared to Libra’s 1,000 transactions per second. He also said that the DC/EP was based on a centrally managed architecture and not a “pure blockchain architecture,” which requires waiting for transaction confirmations in a block.

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