The Wire

China has continued to test its state-backed digital currency in major centres such as Beijing and Shanghai, raising concerns that the new technology offers another weapon in the government’s arsenal of surveilance.

Crypto-currencies such as Bitcoin tend to be libertarian in the sense that they are decentralised from the state, privately owned, and somewhat deregulated. But China’s digital currency and electronic payment system, the digital Renminbi or e-yuan, seems to be heading in the opposite direction.

What are the dangers of such a currency and is it any different from the current electronic payment systems we already use?