China’s Digital Yuan Plans Halted By Coronavirus

The latest Coronavirus outbreak managed to cause serious trouble in the worlds of both traditional and digital finance. Crypto-related summits and conferences throughout Asia were canceled due to safety concerns.

China’s state-issued digital currency project would also suffer from developmental delays, as governmental institutions like the People’s Bank of China (PbOC)are operating with a drastic reduction of human resources.

“The developed team behind the Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP) makes no exception, which slows down the process of product development,” stated individuals, close to the development of the CBDC project.

The CEO of BankLedger – a company associated with the development of the digital yuan, stated that the People’s Bank of China would make an official statement during Q1 of 2020.

Researcher Cao Yin expects the launch of China’s digital currency project to happen until the end of 2020. According to Yin, who is a leading researcher at Yangtze Delta Region Institute at Tsinghua University, the Chinese government made preparations “both theoretically and technically” to have a working road map.

Yin also noted that the People’s Bank of China’s team is sufficient to catch up with the delay, caused by the virus outbreak.

However, China’s central bank has other issues, as the Guangzhou branch of PBoC would have to “destroy all banknotes, used in hospitals, markets, and public transport immediately,” to handle the spreading of the COVID-19 virus.

In the meantime, China’s central bank established two branches that do research and development (R&D) of digital currencies. The first one is in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, and the other is in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. The People’s Bank of China also does R&D in Beijing.

As Cryptobrowser.io reported, PBoC filed at least 60 patents in the field of digital currencies.