The coronavirus outbreak appears to have thrown a wrench on the digital yuan’s launch.
Research into the Middle Kingdom’s sovereign digital currency has been impeded by the coronavirus outbreak, the Global Times reports. “The coronavirus outbreak has led to postponed work resumption in government institutions, including the People’s Bank of China,” someone close to the matter said.
That said, some industry experts are saying that the PBoC could make the launch as planned. Cao Yin, vice director of the Advanced Research Institute of Blockchain under the Yangtze Delta Region Institute of Tsinghua University, said that “the central bank has been preparing for the launch both technologically and theoretically for a long time,” adding that “the technological roadmap has been laid out already.”
He continued that the bank has enough people on its digital currency research team to deal with the lag.
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