The Chinese version of "Bitcoin" is on the way (hotspot)

According to the official website of the People's Bank of China, a digital currency seminar was held in Beijing on January 20. The meeting stated that the central bank established a digital currency research team in 2014 , and conducted in-depth research on topics such as digital currency issuance and business operation framework, key technologies of digital currency, and digital currency issuance and circulation environment, and has achieved phased results. The meeting also required that the digital currency research team of the People's Bank of China will actively absorb important results and practical experience of digital currency research at home and abroad, do a good job in key technology research, study the multi-scenario application of digital currency, and strive to launch the digital currency issued by the central bank as soon as possible.

After the relevant news was released, the price of Bitcoin rose. According to the quotation published by Huobi.com, as of 15:00 on January 21 , the average price of Bitcoin / RMB was 2793 , an increase of 0.83% .

The central bank has conducted multiple surveys

"The central bank's convening of a digital currency seminar is certainly a good thing for the entire industry," said Li Qiyuan, CEO of Bitcoin China , in an interview with a reporter from the International Financial News.

This is in line with the voice of most digital currency practitioners. Xu Mingxing, founder of Bitcoin trading platform OKCoin , also told the International Financial News reporter that the central bank's actions show that regulators are increasingly accepting new technologies, "which is encouraging."

Xu Mingxing told reporters that he only learned about the news after seeing media reports today. But he was not surprised, because in the past two years, the central bank has conducted many surveys on companies in Bitcoin and related industries, and he himself has also been surveyed. "We mainly introduced the use of Bitcoin around the world, such as innovations in cross-border small payments, interbank clearing and other fields. Our advice to the central bank is that Bitcoin and the blockchain technology behind it are likely to change the future monetary environment. China should not ignore the development of this technology."

According to the People's Bank of China's news release, digital currency research experts from Citibank and Deloitte were also invited to participate in the seminar. In recent years, Citibank has been at the forefront of digital currency research and even innovated its own "Citi Coin".

As a world-renowned auditing company, Deloitte has always favored digital currency technology. According to relevant reports, Deloitte began to invest in blockchain technology research as early as two years ago, and established a special blockchain development research platform Rubix , which brings together more than 100 researchers from 12 countries .

Once "window guidance"

In 2014 and earlier, Bitcoin was once subject to "window guidance" from regulators represented by the central bank, but then slowed down.

On the afternoon of May 6 , 2014 , five major domestic Bitcoin trading platforms jointly issued a self-discipline statement, saying that they "bear an unshirkable responsibility for the problems that have arisen in the development of Bitcoin in China" and "decided to take consistent self-discipline actions to promote the positive development of Bitcoin." In addition to the usual declarations of transparency, the platforms jointly proposed for the first time to stop financing and currency lending and unify fee rates.

The background at that time was that after the central bank and five other departments jointly issued the "Notice on Preventing Bitcoin Risks" in December 2013, the number of Bitcoin transactions in China not only did not decline, but also exceeded 50% of the world this year , becoming the world 's number one. Various trading platforms even launched financial derivatives such as margin trading and currency lending to amplify leverage and risk.

At the end of April 2014 , the rather embarrassed central bank summoned several commercial banks and third - party payment institutions related to Bitcoin transactions and demanded that they no longer provide financial services for any Bitcoin transactions before May 10 .

After the talks, Alipay took the lead in announcing that it would ban payment services from being used for Bitcoin transactions, and forced all Taobao platforms to stop selling Bitcoin recharge code online stores. Afterwards, China Merchants Bank, Ping An Bank, and Everbright Bank also issued statements prohibiting their accounts from being used for Bitcoin transactions.

On May 1 , domestic Bitcoin trading platform Linkcoin announced that it would shut down the platform. On May 2 , FXBTC said in a website suspension announcement: "Due to the recent central bank policies, we are under unprecedented pressure, including the inability to deposit and withdraw cash, resulting in the inability to operate normally and difficulties in decision-making. Facing the long-term blockade of the central bank, we are currently powerless. After a long period of losses, we finally decided to stop operating FXBTC ."

Industry hopes for cooperation

Over the past year, the central bank has softened its stance, and most Bitcoin practitioners seem to applaud the central bank's moves. However, there are also views that the central bank supports the technological applications behind Bitcoin, and because Bitcoin's speculative nature is too strong, the central bank will also strengthen supervision.

The key issue now is that if the national digital currency team comes, what will happen to these digital currencies represented by Bitcoin in the country?

Li Qiyuan believes that the relationship between legal digital currency and Bitcoin is not "competitive" but "cooperative". He told reporters that the digital currencies issued by central banks of different countries are also of different types, just like the difference between the US dollar and the euro. Informal currencies like Bitcoin are likely to become reserve currencies and "credit endorse" digital currencies issued by central banks of various countries.

"From this perspective, the relationship between Bitcoin and legal digital currency is like the relationship between gold and various national currencies," said Li Qiyuan.