The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) was one of the first central banks globally to introduce a digital currency, launching its digital yuan in September 2020. While other central banks, notably the Federal Reserve in the United States and the European Central Bank in the European Union, have discussed issuing digital dollars and digital euros respectively, they have not yet implemented them.
The primary reason Beijing took this pioneering step is its ambitious goals that other central banks lack. One is a strong desire to monitor its domestic population closely, and the other is to challenge the supremacy of the US dollar as the world’s primary reserve currency. The slow adoption rate of the digital yuan indicates that even if Beijing ultimately achieves its objectives, it will take a considerable amount of time.
It’s evident that Beijing heavily promotes the security, reliability, and convenience of the digital currency. With such advantages, it’s challenging to understand why some would oppose the project. However, even the least concerned citizens can see that if the digital yuan dominates all transactions, authorities can track every purchase and sale made by residents. Considering that cash still plays a significant role in retail transactions in China, this scenario, while not entirely impossible, is highly improbable.
The Chinese government can surely access ordinary citizens’ bank and credit card accounts. Still, this surveillance method is less convenient than conducting transactions using the digital currency managed by the PBOC’s computers. Beijing vehemently opposes the anonymity of cryptocurrencies and stablecoins and has banned the use of such currencies within China precisely because of its desire for enhanced surveillance.
Undoubtedly, the cautious approach towards the usage of the digital yuan, also known as e-CNY, has led to significant reluctance among the Chinese populace to embrace it. Despite the PBOC expanding the scope of the digital currency from digital cash to interest-bearing accounts like traditional bank deposits, public resistance remains evident.
Merchants report that the government-provided POS terminals are often idle. Civil servants, while receiving their salaries in digital yuan, immediately transfer the funds to their traditional bank accounts.
According to Beijing, by the end of November 2025, the total number of digital yuan transactions reached approximately 3.5 billion, totaling 16.7 trillion Chinese yuan (approximately 2.41 trillion US dollars). However, these figures only represent a small fraction in comparison to the overall transaction volume of all payment methods disclosed by the PBOC in 2025, totaling 1.62 trillion transactions worth 128.07 trillion Chinese yuan.
Internationally, Beijing is aggressively promoting the digital yuan through its “Project mBridge,” which aims to settle central bank currency transactions using a multi-currency platform. To date, this project has brought together central banks from various regions, including China, Hong Kong, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia.
Beijing introduced the “digital currency bridge” project with the direct competition against the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) based on the US dollar. This move aligns with Beijing’s ambition to ultimately replace the dollar with the yuan as the primary medium for international trade and global wealth reserves, known as the “global reserve” by bankers and economists.
However, despite these efforts, both the other members of the digital currency bridge project and China itself continue to use SWIFT for transactions. This is because SWIFT remains the primary international transaction method, with the US dollar still dominating digital transactions.
According to PBOC statistics, as of November last year, the digital currency bridge project processed transactions valued at 387 billion yuan (approximately 56 billion US dollars), almost entirely in digital yuan. This amount is almost negligible compared to SWIFT’s anticipated average of over 36 trillion transaction messages by 2025, with transaction amounts reaching hundreds of billions of dollars. Consequently, the digital currency bridge project has become inconsequential, and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, Switzerland, has withdrawn from the project.
Beijing is undoubtedly disappointed by the slow progress of the digital yuan but has not abandoned efforts to promote it domestically and internationally. However, it is evident that despite these efforts, the Chinese regime’s controls over its citizens and international interactions will require an extended period to fully materialize.