July 16, 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By Our Correspondent<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Seeing the growing success of stablecoins in Hong Kong and the US, Shanghai appears poised to pursue its own digital currency ambitions, the South China Morning Post<\/em> reported, citing unnamed Chinese sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The move would mark a notable departure from Beijing\u2019s long-standing ban on cryptocurrencies, imposed in 2021. While cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin remain prohibited, Chinese regulators are now reportedly considering the potential of stablecoins\u2014digital currencies typically pegged to the U.S. dollar or other assets\u2014as a lower-risk tool for modernizing cross-border payments and financial infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the report, Guotai Haitong, <\/strong>a financial services firm owned by the Shanghai municipal government, along with Shanghai Data Group,<\/strong> a state-owned data infrastructure company, will jointly study the feasibility of launching a trial stablecoin program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The proposal reportedly emerged from a high-level meeting held last Thursday by the Shanghai State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC).<\/strong> The meeting, which attracted significant media attention, has been widely interpreted as a sign of Beijing\u2019s growing openness to digital financial innovations\u2014at least within a tightly controlled framework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the meeting, Shanghai SASAC director He Qing urged regulators and executives of state-owned enterprises to explore emerging technologies, including digital currencies. \u201cState-owned assets and state-owned companies will play a bigger role in scientific and technological innovation, adjustment of industrial mix, and security support,\u201d He said in an official statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The development comes in the wake of comments made by Pan Gongsheng, governor of the People’s Bank of China, at a recent financial summit, where he highlighted the role of stablecoins in enabling cross-border payments.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While China has aggressively promoted its central bank digital currency (CBDC)\u2014<\/strong>the digital yuan, or e-CNY\u2014stablecoins offer another path to digitization, one that could attract institutional interest without the volatility associated with traditional cryptocurrencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Observers say the momentum in Hong Kong,<\/strong> where stablecoins were recently legalized under a formal regulatory regime, may be pushing Chinese authorities to reconsider their blanket restrictions on digital assets. For now, however, any experimentation on the mainland is expected to remain strictly confined to state-owned actors <\/strong>and <\/strong>pilot programs, <\/strong>with an emphasis on financial stability and sovereignty.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n If successful, the Shanghai initiative could signal a new phase in China\u2019s evolving relationship with blockchain technology\u2014not as a tool of decentralization, but as a new instrument of state-driven innovation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" July 16, 2025 By Our Correspondent Seeing the growing success of stablecoins in Hong Kong and the US, Shanghai appears poised to pursue its own digital currency ambitions, the South China Morning Post reported, citing unnamed Chinese sources. The move would mark a notable departure from Beijing\u2019s long-standing ban on cryptocurrencies, imposed in 2021. While cryptocurrencies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8006,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8004","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized"},"yoast_head":"\n