It looks like the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) is all set to test its central bank digital currency (CBDC) - Digital Yuan - in its market. In a major development Chinese ride-hailing giant DiDi announced that it is now developing a task force to implement the Digital Yuan use on its platform.

A spokesperson from Didi said that the company has entered into a strategic partnership with the Digital Currency Research Institute of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC). This move is an effort to accelerate the real-life application of the CBDC, known as Digital Currency Electronic Payment, or DCEP.

In its official statement, the company said: “Under PBoC’s overall DCEP strategy and operation timeline, DiDi’s DCEP taskforce will design and implement pilot DCEP projects in accordance with rigorous safety, security and governance standards. The partnership is a key milestone in DiDi’s ongoing initiatives to enhance the interconnectivity of online and offline economic sectors in China, as the government seeks to support the development of the real economy sectors with innovative financial services”.

As per the data from CB Insights, Didi is the world’s second-highest-valued unicorn startup valued at $56 billion and with over 550 million users across Asia, Latin America and Australia. Called as the Uber of China, its major services include public transportation and food delivery. The company also plans to release over 1 million self-driving cars in the market through its autonomous subsidiary, by 2030.

With such a massive user base of Didi, the PBoC can get a better understanding of the working of its CBDC. Besides, it will have enough data at hand to judge the project’s user-friendliness and how consumers are reacting to it. This, in turn, will help to set the stage for the pan-country launch its CBDC.

The Chinese central bank (PBoC) which is currently working with the Digital Yuan has also joined hands with multiple commercial banks and other technology giants for testing the CBDC. Reportedly, PBoC is also working with other commercial banks to test run a wallet application that will store, send, and receive the Digital Yuan.

As per the latest media reports, PBoC is conducting CBDC tests at some commercial shops like Subway, McDonalds, and Starbucks and has asked all government representatives to participate in it.

China has been Asia’s contender to work on a CBDC project and has accelerated all its developments over the last year. Another Asian economic giant - Japan - also plans to soon start testing the Digital Yen looking to the rising developments in global market.

Source: WorldCoinIndex

The first of 2020 has been roller-coaster ride for Bitcoin and the overall cryptocurrency market. The outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic world-wide has the dynamics of global economics as well as for the crypto markets.

Besides, we also have some important events from the crypto space like the Bitcoin halving in May 2020 and the accelerated development of ETH 2.0. Let’s take a look into the performance of Bitcoin and other top-five altcoins in the crypto market.

 

Bitcoin Performance in First-Half of 2020

2020 started on a pretty good note for the Bitcoin investors as the BTC price appreciated over 40% just in the first 45 days of the year. Bitcoin went all the way from $7000 to over $10,000 by mid-February.

However, Bitcoin couldn’t cross its major resistance at $10,500 levels and soon after the outbreak of COVID-19, BTC price plunged more than 50% from its 2020-high to go below $5000 levels just in a month’s time by mid-March 2020.

If we look at the BTC year-to-date chart, BTC’s performance has been very similar to the traditional stock markets. BTC’s price collapse is in tune with the global market collapse in March 2020. Thus, Bitcoin failed to live to its image of being the ‘Digital Gold’ and a safe haven for traditional market investors.

On the other hand, the price of physical Gold continued to rise with the global markets plunging. Soon after this price crash, Bitcoin investors yet again started accumulating the world’s largest cryptocurrency.

But investors’ hopes remain up and alive for the Bitcoin halving event in May 2020. Investors once again started accumulating BTC and BTC price started. Just before the scheduled Bitcoin halving data of May 11, BTC price touched $10,000 surging 100% from its 2020-low.

Pots the Bitcoin halving, Bitcoin price has remained volatile moving back-and-forth in the range of $8800 (support) and $10,500 (resistance).

If we compare the year-to-date graphs for Bitcoin and the overall cryptocurrency market, they are largely identical showing that BTC still decides the over crypto market momentum single-handedly.

Currently, BTC is trading at 30% year-to-date premium around $9200 levels.

 

A Look At the Altcoin Performance

The world’s second largest cryptocurrency and the most popular altcoin - Ethereum - has remained on investors’ radar for 2020. The Ethereum community has been eagerly waiting for the launch of Ethereum 2.0.

As Ethereum prepares to move from the PoW to the more efficient PoS consensus model, investors are accumulating ETH to participate in the staking process in Ethereum 2.0. In ETH 2.0 investors need to have a minimum of 32 ETH to participate in staking.

Of lately, developments with respect to ETH 2.0 have been in an accelerated mode. Last week, blockchain engineering firm ConsenSys announced its Codefi staking platform to offer institutional-grade, exchanges, and wallets, its ETH 2.0 staking as a service.

Ethereum has been one of the best performing altcoin trading at 80% premium year-to-date. At press time, Ethereum is trading at $228 with a market cap of $25 billion.

Stablecoin Tether (USDT) has managed to climb up the ranks and is currently the third-largest cryptocurrency by market cap. Thanks to the poor performance of other altcoins like XRP, Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Litecoin (LTC).

One altcoin which has turned very popular and given massive returns is Chainlink (LINK). The price of LINK cryptocurrency has surged over 3000% year-to-date. Chainlink is an oracle service provider which helps to transfer off chain data to other blockchain networks. Recently, Chainlink partnered with China’s Blockchain Services Network (BSN) to transfer real-word data using the interchain service hub IRITA.

Source: WorldCoinIndex

Global stablecoin projects from the across the world will have to meet some stricter regulatory rules if they have to operate in the European Union. In this regard, the EU is working on a new cryptocurrency regime says EU’s lead economics minister, Valdis Dombrovskis.

During his speech at the Digital Finance Outreach 2020 earlier this week, Dombrovskis said that Europe needs to seize this opportunity and take a lead role in setting up the new rules for digital finance.

“This is a good chance for Europe to strengthen its international standing and to become a global standard-setter, with European companies leading new technologies for digital finance,” he said. The economics minister has said that the first test case for new regulatory regime would be cryptocurrencies.

Currently, the European law covers rules for some cryptocurrencies such as the security tokens. However, the cryptocurrencies that fall in the stablecoin category still remain largely unregulated. Dombrovskis added that this “Lack of legal certainty is often cited as the main barrier to developing a sound crypto-asset market in the EU”.

Moreover, one of the major challenges that EU is currently facing is that some of its members have taken matters into their own hands. Well, this negatively affects the market integration making it further difficult for businesses to operate within the EU trading bloc.

The new regulatory regime aims to address all these bottlenecks. In addition to covering digital assets under the new rules, the EU also plans to tweak existing standards across its member countries in order to accommodate digital assets.

Dombrovskis hasn’t provided much details into how the future regime would look like. However, he said that the framework would include measure that support and promote innovation.

They first plan to launch a pilot scheme that gives some space to regulators to experiment new solutions, and also monitor and observe them. But as a caveat, he also added that the EU is planning to bring stricter rules on projects that are deemed to be termed as “global stablecoins”.

The EU had a tough time dealing with Facebook’s Libra launch last year. Such stablecoins that operate on a global map can bring more challenges for the regulators and Dombrovskis says that they can potentially disrupt the monetary and financial stability.

Speaking about the rules in general, Dombrovskis said that “Overall, our approach will be proportionate and relate to the level of risk. That means lighter rules for less risky projects”. Concluding his speech by speaking about global stablecoins, Dombrovskis said “their potentially systemic role [means] our rules will be stronger.”

Source: https://www.worldcoinindex.com/news/the-european-union-is-working-on-a-new-cryptocurrency-regulatory-regime