China is indeed the most visible champion of this technology. While the digital yuan is still far from ubiquitous in China, it still covers 13.6 billion RMB, 260 million wallets and 25 cities, according to Ananya Kumar at the Atlantic Council. It may not be so scary to think of a CBDC as one form of payment, co-existing alongside cash, stablecoins and decentralized cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. But China’s CBDC project is so ambitious that it’s not impossible to conceive of Beijing pulling levers to incentivize citizens to primarily rely on digital yuan.
Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) Are Unexpectedly Becoming a U.S. Presidential Election Issue
