E-Currency

I want to share about the news that happened in China about e-currency. Most people don’t know about e-currency. E-currency is currency which is saved as “1”s and “0”s in the computer which could be used like cash. Apple Pay, Samsung pay, Alipay and Wechat pay this kind of payment agency and money which is saved and used through this agency does not count as e-currency. One of the most famous examples is Bitcoin, which uses an encryption algorithm to make payments and save money in the digital wallet. But bitcoin is not a government issued currency and does not have government grantee value.

The e-currency I want to talk about is a Chinese government program which is trying to publish the government issue e-currency.

This program started in 2015 and recently is preparing to publish and doing final tests for the system. There is an experiment launching in Hangzhou which is in the form of consumption vouchers. They give out 1 million 100 china Yuan vouchers and those who get the voucher can use them in the store where they have a device to accept them. This is a public experiment to test the stability of the system and one of the final steps to launch. Unlike most other e-currencies, this e-currency system that the Chinese government will publish, is counted as legal currency which is the same as cash.