US Congress to consider ban on the digital yuan in app stores

A group of Republican senators introduced a bill in the US Congress that would require app stores to exclude the use of the digital yuan (e-CNY), as well as any apps with such functionality.

The ‘American Protection from Authoritarian Digital Currencies Act’ was crafted by Tom Cotton, Mike Braun and Marco Rubio. The initiative aims to create barriers to “direct control” and surveillance of Americans’ financial activity.

The term “app store” covers all “publicly available websites, software or other electronic services that distribute applications for computer and mobile device users”.

The digital-dollar proponent Senator Tom Cotton backed the bill.

“The Chinese Communist Party will use the digital yuan for control and surveillance. We cannot give China such a chance … to undermine our economy at its most basic level”, — stated he.

China has been testing the digital yuan for three years. By the end of 2021, the value of e-CNY transactions reached 87.57 billion yuan (~$13.68 billion), with 261 million unique digital wallets registered.

In February 2021, the People’s Bank of China and the UAE joined the “bridge” project for national digital currencies, launched by regulators in Hong Kong and Thailand.

In April 2022, the People’s Bank of China expanded the e-CNY testing program to 23 cities.

Earlier, Senator Pat Toomey warned about the threat posed by the digital yuan to US national security.

Deutsche Bank analysts also suggested that the use of e-CNY in foreign trade could undermine the dollar’s dominance.

Former head of the People’s Bank of China Zhou Xiaochuan said that the digital yuan is intended for the public and merchants, not to replace SWIFT or turn currency into a weapon.

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