Tech experts wanted in China—some to help digital currency push

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For quite some time now, we’ve known that China intends to launch its own digital currency. However, there had been some indications that this project was taking a back seat and that the government was in no rush to launch. This might not be so, with the latest recruitment notice by the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) indicating that the Asian economic giant is seeking talented tech experts to help push on with the digital currency initiative.

The recruitment drive seeks to find the best talent in China for the PBoC in several divisions, one of which is the Digital Currency Research Institute (DCRI). This is the division of the bank that has been in charge of the country’s push for a central bank digital currency (CBDC). China has been reported to be quite interested in the CBDC as it seeks to position itself as a leader in the global digital economy, a position that the U.S. has had a stranglehold on.

Reports that China was seeking to launch its own digital currency first appeared in July. However, it was a month later in August that the world got to know just how serious China was about the project. As CoinGeek reported, it emerged that the country had been working on the project for over five years, fine tuning the technology which it hopes can finally take the power from the U.S. dollar.

 A few weeks later, it emerged that China planned on releasing the digital currency to eight entities which have a large customer base in the country. They included e-commerce and payments giant Alibaba, messaging and gaming firm Tencent, the world’s largest bank Industrial and Commercial Bank and the Agricultural Bank of China.

The recruitment notice serves as yet another affirmation that China is all in on its digital currency project, despite an earlier report that regulatory hurdles could hinder the project. The report by state-run media outlet Xinhua indicated that PBoC’s governor Yi Gang had dismissed speculation that the digital currency would launch this year.

The renewed enthusiasm has a lot to do with Facebook’s Libra project, with China being of the view that should the project succeed, it will give the U.S. dollar an even bigger hold on the global economy. An executive at PBoC stated recently that should Libra succeed, “there would be in essence one boss, that is the U.S. dollar and the United States. If so, it would bring a series of economic, financial and even international political consequences.”