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Chinese Bank Disables Digital Yuan Wallet After Soft Launch Draws Wide Attention
A major bank quietly opened up a wallet service for Chinaâs central bank digital currency to public users â but quickly disabled it after the feature gained widespread attention.
Around noon on Saturday local time, users of China Construction Bank (CCB), one of the big-four state-owned commercial banks, started to notice that a central bank digital currency wallet feature was available inside the bankâs mobile app.
By searching âdigital currencyâ in Chinese, users of the app could navigate to the digital yuan wallet service and further activate it by registering with a mobile phone number associated with their bank accounts at CCB.
Related: Chinese Ex-Banker Says Digital Currency Should Replace Fiat Money
It is unclear when CCB quietly opened up this service to public users for testing but the feature had quickly gained wide attention on Saturday among the Chinese cryptocurrency community as well as local crypto media. Some users also made small amount of transactions by linking their CCB bank accounts with the wallet.
However, the banking giant has now disabled the feature from public users. Searching for the same term inside CCBâs mobile app now leads to a message that says: âThis function is not yet officially available to the public. Please wait patiently.â
Nonetheless, the brief availability of the wallet shows the Chinese commercial bank has been working towards a wider adoption for the Digital Yuan initiative, also known as DCEP, which is led by the Peopleâs Bank of China (PBoC).
The walletâs interface seen by CoinDesk showed each user that had activated the service via CCB was assigned to a specific wallet ID, which could be used to make transactions between the wallet and usersâ CCB bank accounts.
Related: Starbucks, McDonaldâs Among 19 Firms to Test Chinaâs Digital Yuan: Report
In addition, users could also send and receive digital yuan to each other by putting in either their unique wallet ID addresses or an associated mobile phone number.
Under the direction of the PBoC, the big-four Chinese state-owned commercial banks have been developing their respective digital yuan wallets and running internal tests with selected users and merchants in the country.
It remains to be seen when these banks will officially open up the services to the public and whether the wallets will enable more applications that can use Chinaâs digital yuan.
The PBoC is also working with DiDi Chuxing and other internet-based services to apply digital yuan into more payment scenarios.
Read more: Ride-Hailing Giant DiDi to Trial Chinaâs Central Bank Digital Currency
Related StoriesChainlink Acquires Blockchain Oracle Solution From Cornell University
Chainlink has acquired Cornell Universityâs privacy oracle solution DECO for an undisclosed amount. This is Chainlinkâs second acquisition to date, according to an announcement made by the firm on Saturday.
DECO was co-created by Ari Juel, former chief scientist at digital security firm RSA, who will also join Chainlink Labs as part of the deal under the same title.
Moreover, Chainlink CEO Sergey Nazarov and Juels have begun drafting a second Chainlink white paper, according to a phone interview with the pair. The duo authored the original Chainlink white paper in 2017.
Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin Braces for $700M in Options to Expire; Record $7B Value Locked in DeFi
Chainlinkâs oracle solution ports data from off-chain locations into blockchain smart contracts. For example, Chainlink provides data information for most decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, such as dYdXâs crypto derivative products.Â
Read more: Money Legos Turn âExuberantâ as Chainlink Stripped of âDeFiâ
DECO claims to leverage how HTTPS/TLS information is transmitted for more secure web practices, according to a release from the firm.
âDECO is also useful for users who want to monetize their own data (and therefore prove that they are indeed providing correct data) without giving away anything but the data that they are selling,â DECOâs website reads.
Decentralized creditRelated: Market Wrap: Bitcoin Dips to $11.6K, ETH Options Predict Price Below $400 by End of Year
Nazarov said DECO can be used as a foundation for a few crypto wish list items, such as permissionless credit or decentralized identification.
For example, he said DECO can prove a person is over 18 by pulling data from a DMV while hiding the individualâs birth date.
This could be further applied to the golden apple of decentralized finance, permissionless credit systems. Nazarov said an oracle like DECO could one day allow a smart contract to query off-chain credit information such as banking records without overreaching into personal data.
Read more: Chainlink to Provide Data for Farming Insurance Startup Arbol
âDECO is the way a lot of collateral will make its way to DeFi,â Nazarov said.
Juels told CoinDesk this privacy is possible through DECOâs incorporation of zero-knowledge proofs, popularized in cryptocurrency circles by the privacy coin zcash (ZEC).
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