One of the country’s big-four state-owned commercial banks may provide an offline option for storing national cryptocurrency
China Construction Bank (CCB) briefly launched a wallet service within its mobile app over the weekend, before taking it down after it caught a widespread interest from users. The wallet is intended for keeping China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC), also known as DC/EP.
According to the Terms of Use, reviewed by Coindesk, the CCB has in plans to launch a hardware wallet.
The wallet would allow to store digital yuan without the need to connect to the internet. It is likely to be activated within the app or at the branch on client’s request. Unlike physical cash, the DC/EP hardware wallet would not reserve user’s anonymity as it would require a personal ID and phone number to activate it initially.
The Terms describe the functions of making payments, depositing to or withdrawing from bank accounts and initiating transactions between wallets. The service could be offered as a four-tier option, setting the spending limits at each level. For example, a second-tier wallet would have a deposit cap of 10,000 yuan (about $1,500) and 5,000 yuan per single transaction. A daily spending limit would not exceed 10,000 yuan or 300,000 ($42,000) annually. It is yet not clear what limitations the first-tier wallets will have or how the tier is to be assigned.
Earlier, Chinese media reported that the government could speed up the release of the digital national currency as post-COVID-19 stimulus measure with upcoming 2020 Beijing Winter Olympics to be set as testing ground. The DC/EP’s internal tests have also been in plans for Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiong’An and Chengdu.