Central banks of China, EU, US moves on crypto, post-pandemic

The past few years before the Covid-19 pandemic saw the rise of contactless payment systems getting popular in China and other countries. The announced figure showed that Alipay had 1.2 billion users and WeChat Pay had 900 million at the end of 2020. For Alipay, overseas users counted 300 million.

The rise of cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin, based on blockchain, in the second half of the 2010s threatened the seigniorage power of governments around the world. Its private promoters dangle privacy to convince people to use the cryptocurrency in transactions and usurping the role of traditional fiat money issued by governments. At the cryptocurrency frenzy peak in April 2021, there were more than 6000 cryptocurrencies and stable coins in the market with a value of over $2 trillion.