Fintech and regulation experts say that the United States needs to wake up to China’s proactive pursuit of a central bank digital currency.
On Nov. 1 Fortune reported that digital currency can play a supreme role in the standoff between China and the United States.
China’s pursuit of being a world leader
Mike Wasyl– managing partner at DeerCreek, a Fintech-focused corporate strategy firm that works across Asia-Pacific and the U.S. said:
“China is making these very large macro plays. They want to maintain control and be seen as leaders and so adopting blockchain and being public about it, as we saw recently, is going to stir a lot of interest.”
Duncan Wong, the chief executive of a Hong Kong based startup CryptoBLK, said the recent endorsement of blockchain by the President of China is likely to accelerate China’s central bank in the adoption of digital currency (CBDC).
China already has a vast digital payment ecosystem, with Tencent’s WeChat Pay which includes over a billion users and Alibaba’s Alipay which includes over 1.2 billion userbases.
U.S. needs to cut blockchain firms a little more slack
Mike argues that the US is stuck in trying to “regulate its way to innovation.” He adds that a United States CBDC is “an inevitability,” while stating the government should be capitalizing on the interest that is being sparked by Facebook’s Libra to open a larger conversation about the currency’s currency future.
Once digital currency gains traction, he stressed, “it’ll be gradually, and then all at once.”
The expert adds that for the time being China’s CBDC is not likely to pose a threat to the US dollar hegemony although they warn that the United States needs to cut blockchain firms “a little more slack to allow some exploration” if it is to stay ahead in the game.
Source: cointelegraph.com | fortune.com | Image: cryptoiscoming.com