Ping An View:
The pace of global digital currency practice has accelerated. According to different issuers, digital currency is divided into private digital currency and legal digital currency (CBDC), which is mainly based on the consensus algorithm of blockchain pow. Since 2020, major overseas economies have become more and more positive towards the development of CBDC. According to the IMF's survey of 174 member countries, more and more central banks, including major overseas central banks such as the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and the Bank of England, have made substantial progress in the implementation of official digital currency - at present, 69% of projects are in the research stage, 9% are in the demonstration stage, 15% are in the pilot stage and 7% are in the issuance stage.
Overseas legal digital currency: retail type develops faster than wholesale type. According to the different object-oriented of payment system, legal digital currency is further divided into wholesale CBDC and retail CBDC. The rapid development of private digital currency poses a certain threat to the traditional legal tender of the central bank. The world's major economies are more and more active in the development of CBDC, and emerging countries are more active in the implementation of CBDC. At present, the technical structure, existing form, operation framework and underlying assets of various countries have different designs, but the trend of retail type, distributed ledger and double-layer operation is obvious. 1) Retail CBDC is open to the public and complements cash and existing electronic payment tools, which can enhance the competitiveness of the payment market. Its advantage lies in improving financial inclusion, expanding the audience of Inclusive Finance, and improving the overall welfare level of society. Typical projects include rscoin of the Bank of England, ekrona of the Bank of Sweden and sanddollar of the Bahamas; Rapid progress has been made, and existing projects have been officially implemented. 2) Wholesale CBDC is mainly used between the central bank and financial institutions, not for the public. Its advantage lies in 24-hour real-time settlement, which improves the interoperability between settlement systems with disintermediated "point-to-point" large payment, reduces cross-border payment costs and settlement risks. At present, the progress is slow. The central bank's wholesale CBDC test is still under exploration. Typical projects include Jasper of Canada, Ubin of the monetary authority of Singapore, Bank of Japan and Stella of the European Central Bank.
Overseas private digital currency: developed earlier and cryptocurrency grew strongly. At present, overseas private currencies can be divided into six categories. Since the launch of bitcoin, private digital currency has entered a period of rapid development, the underlying technology has been maturing, and the convenience and security of payment have been continuously improved. Since 2021, the varieties of private digital currencies have been rapidly enriched, and the total market value has increased significantly. According to coinmarketcap statistics, as of May 16, 2022, there were 10100 cryptocurrencies in the world, with a total market value of US $1.28 trillion, an increase of 80.41% over the end of 2020.
The reference significance of overseas digital currency to China's digital RMB. In terms of legal digital currency, we should promote the cross platform circulation of digital RMB and enrich the trading scene; Continuously apply new technologies to enhance the convenience and inclusiveness of digital RMB payment, avoid delaying the use efficiency of transactions and improve the efficiency of cross-border payment. In terms of private digital currency, overseas supervision of cryptocurrency has gradually taken shape, and there are still some regulatory blind spots in China. We should reasonably set up digital currency supervision institutions, improve the top-level design of digital currency supervision, strengthen global cooperation in cryptocurrency supervision, participate in international rule-making and enhance China's voice in International financial governance.
Risk tips: 1) the epidemic has caused the macro-economy to be less than expected; 2) Payment habits are difficult to change, and the promotion of digital RMB is less than the expected risk; 3) Risk of immaturity of underlying technologies related to digital currency.
