China Starts Digital Yuan Trial By Giving $30 To 50,000 People (nikkei.com) 55
China is starting a first-of-its-kind digital yuan trial by distributing 10 million yuan ($1.5 million) of the digital currency among 50,000 participants selected by lottery. "That equates to each participant being granted 200 yuan, or $30, to spend at any of 3,389 designated restaurants and stores," notes Nikkei Asian Review. From the report: The trial ends next Monday. Other tests of digital currencies have mainly been done by the public sector, but this is the first to involve a large number of ordinary citizens. There was no cost to take part in the test. More than 1.91 million people applied to take part with and acceptance rate at less than 3%. Ostensibly, the digital yuan project is meant to make China's currency more international and user friendly. But critics say it would also allow authorities to more easily track funds.
Apprehensions over China's digital currency assume such transactions will not stop at the nation's border. If the digital yuan is taken up across the world through trade and other avenues, it could undermine the dollar's status as a global key currency. Sanctions that ban dollar transactions would risk losing effectiveness. And if the digital yuan becomes the international standard in terms of technology, it could create a hindrance to other nations' issuing their own digital currencies.
Apprehensions over China's digital currency assume such transactions will not stop at the nation's border. If the digital yuan is taken up across the world through trade and other avenues, it could undermine the dollar's status as a global key currency. Sanctions that ban dollar transactions would risk losing effectiveness. And if the digital yuan becomes the international standard in terms of technology, it could create a hindrance to other nations' issuing their own digital currencies.
Re: Slashdot continues to push socialism. Rise up! (Score:2)
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It may have escaped your attention that the Biden that got caught is not the one who is actually running for office.
Or do you believe that the sins of the son should fall to the father?
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More Americans need to take up classes in logic and anti-propaganda.
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No Biden has gotten 'caught'. Even the Republicans haven't been able to find anything in their inquiries, and they've definitely been looking. Meanwhile, Ivanka has gotten all kinds of concessions out of China because of who her daddy is.
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Even the shop owner was not certain if it was hunter that bought it in.
What is the likelihood that the shop owner would be a GOP who is friends with cuomo, or that hunter would leave his mac at the store for ages?
Yeah, not likely.
Trump/GOP owes another blowjob to putin for trying this scam.
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No, the real moronic thing is this Republican idea that asking for donations for charity is somehow "corrupt" and that it is actually an improper type of peddling favors, like when they sell access to politicians.
But it isn't. Meeting people who donate to charity is not considered a corrupt practice. Asking for donations from foreigners for charity is not a corrupt practice. None of these "allegations" contain any allegations, other than that Hunter Biden is good at charity fundraising.
It reminds me of in t
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Stop posting links to the NYpost website because in a few days whatever is on their front page is not going to be there anymore. Instead, link directly to the article in question.
I find it baffling that I have to mention this on Slashdot.
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dollar is already digital though. (Score:2, Interesting)
dollar is already digital though. yuan as well.
I really fail to see the point of this?
I can do digital transactions with thai bahts everywhere as well through apps. Alipay is already international. you could use alipay in thailand at many places.
how is this digital currency different to paypal or anything I can pay online already? samsung pay?
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It's about time (Score:2)
Western governments should have issued digital currency a long time ago. If China sets the standard with the digital Yuan then the west has no one to blame but themselves. It has been obvious for a long time.
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> Western governments should have issued digital currency a long time ago.
Yeah. We should have invented credit cards ages ago.
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America still uses checks and can't even get chip and pin working properly.
Failing smart card readers aside, I use chip and pin everywhere I go, and it works fine. Even poky ma and pa businesses now have compatible readers. For example, we just got ours at work a month or so ago :p
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The US dollar is losing appeal (Score:3)
Even the USA's erstwhile allies are looking to replace the dollar as a global trading currency due to the Americans essentially blackmailing countries and companies that use it who do anything they don't like. (warning paywalls)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/t... [wsj.com]
https://www.economist.com/brie... [economist.com]
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/2... [cnbc.com]
Not surprisingly China will certainly be wanting their currency (both digital and traditional) to become more dominant, though I would not expect them to wield it any less oppressively than the US does, and for that reason I don't think it will be the replacement everyone is looking for.
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The real trick with making the Yaun more popular is having some place worthwhile to spend with certainty and with reliability of value at that location. The ticket for that seems to be Hainan. That combination of tropical hide away and business locale, with development pumped up by the government of China as only they can. The more popular Hainan becomes the more if reinforces the idea of the value of the yuan, because you have some where worthwhile to spend it.
Right now the leading global spot for profita
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The last new currency that was going to replace the dollar was the Euro . . .
If US sanctions are troublesome, then imagine the restrictions and jurisdiction claims that might flow from CCP-driven policy goals.
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The last new currency that was going to replace the dollar was the Euro . . .
If US sanctions are troublesome, then imagine the restrictions and jurisdiction claims that might flow from CCP-driven policy goals.
That is what I said. They would be much the same.
I think it will be a good thing if the global currency exchange simply become more fragmented over time. Hegemony is bad no matter who is wielding it.
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That will have its own issues, but hey, probably better than what we currently see.
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First to market != dominance (Score:3)
People trust the US $ because of 2016-1776 = 240 years of good reputation (a mere 4 of bad rep does not change things, yet).
The idea that merely being the first to market will somehow give China or some other country an insurmountable advantage is ridiculous.
Especially as China is not really the first to market. Even ignoring bitcoin because of no national backing, there is... the US $. The US $ is mostly a digital currency already. Credit cards, checks, wire transfers, etc. Yeah, cash exists, but I have spent thousands of US dollars via digital means in the past month and I did not exchange any bills or coins. The fact that in addition to the digital nature it can also be easily converted to physical currency is a huge benefit - one that China does not seem to be offering.
The only real 'advantages' over current digital money practices China is offering is them personally tracking every yen. That is a 90% a benefit to THEM, not the people. Oh, it might help a bit with fraud and crime, but that is not a major problem while privacy is.
So why would you prefer to use their privacy destroying 'digital' currency?
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But, with our running up MASSIVE trade deficits, along with massive $ deficit/debt, we are looking at hitting a wall SOONER, not later.
America can not keep running up deficits/debt like reagan, W, and trump have done to us. And even now, the Dems have joined in with their GD stimulus bill push (total insanity).
Re:First to market != dominance (Score:5, Interesting)
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Not going to lose any sleep (Score:4, Interesting)
The US has it's own set of unique problems, but none of them are showstoppers for a default world currency. Here is a list of the relevant issues with China:
Very poorly defined property rights
Very poorly defined corporate rights
An absolutely ancient culture but a 50-year old government barely out of it's diapers
An even younger stock and banking system
A history of making rapid leaps forward followed by equally stunning leaps backwards.
No independent judiciary
Run by a dictator
Any one or two of these would be a "nope not gonna happen". Honestly, I'm not even sure China wants it's currency to overtake the dollar. Hosting the default currency has perks but also comes with a lot of hassles. A large part of our national debt exists because other countries basically beg the US to sell them bonds.
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If they wanted it to be the new Ruble, it would make more sense.
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An absolutely ancient culture but a 50-year old government barely out of it's diapers
Sure, but a 50 year old government that has managed to move the most people out of poverty in history.
An even younger stock and banking system
Which has not caused a worldwide recession that lasts a decade, and with a government intent on removing more shackles to allow it to do as they please.
Run by a dictator
Which is a complete misunderstanding of how the CCP works, let alone a government over 1 billion people. To deal with China properly, you need to actually understand actual facts, instead of repeating the same Cold War cold takes.
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An absolutely ancient culture but a 50-year old government barely out of it's diapers
Sure, but a 50 year old government that has managed to move the most people out of poverty in history.
True. This is a spectacular accomplishment that should be recognized. However, China has a history of taking massive leaps backwards as well. One jump forward, even a huge one, doesn't qualify it for leadership.
An even younger stock and banking system
Which has not caused a worldwide recession that lasts a decade, and with a government intent on removing more shackles to allow it to do as they please.
Ju
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It depends what happens in November. The USD has been losing ground to other big stable currencies like the Euro and Yen because the US is now seen as somewhat unreliable. The trade war has not helped either, people don't want to get caught up in that.
Competition is good though, right? It would be better all round if there were at least two major "global" currencies. I've noticed that a lot of banking accepts USD and Euros now, which is good for me because I can avoid some fees.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Asking for trouble. (Score:2)
Combine digital currency with the fact that TLS 1.3 is forbidden and you have a great environment for cybercrime. Seriously, it's like they are daring hackers to steal from them.