ChainCatcher News, Mu Changchun, director of the Digital Currency Research Institute of the People's Bank of China, stated at the Sibos 2024 conference on October 23, titled "Multilateral Central Bank Digital Currency Bridge: Connecting Global Economies with Central Bank Digital Currencies," that the Digital Currency Research Institute will systematically enhance the currency bridge technology in three aspects:Privacy protection mechanism. In the future, privacy protection technology based on zero-knowledge proofs will be developed, with plans to launch in 2025. The design of zero-knowledge proofs can demonstrate the compliance of both parties in a transaction and the sufficiency of funds without disclosing details such as account balances or transaction timestamps.System development and operation maintenance system. The currency bridge system will be deployed in a decentralized manner, with each party independently maintaining operations.Openness and transparency of the currency bridge platform. To strengthen trust among participants, the source code of the currency bridge is currently fully transparent to all participating central banks. Next, the Digital Currency Research Institute plans to promote joint development, code delivery, code review, continuous integration, continuous delivery, and continuous deployment using the development and operation maintenance system. At the same time, the Digital Currency Research Institute will collaborate with the Bank for International Settlements to hire service providers for third-party code reviews and open-source assessment preparations to achieve full open-source status.

ChainCatcher news, Mu Changchun, director of the Digital Currency Research Institute of the People's Bank of China, recently pointed out in an article in the "Current Affairs Report" that the digital renminbi features a dual-layer operational framework, combining both account and value models. In the future, the digital renminbi will deepen its development in areas such as cross-border payments and smart contracts, aiding in the internationalization of the renminbi and the construction of a unified domestic market.The digital renminbi integrates both account and value models and achieves a unified ledger through data capability construction: under the account model, it can be integrated and interconnected with the traditional banking account system; under the value model, it can facilitate value exchange in the form of currency strings, providing smart payments on the blockchain and usable in extreme offline scenarios such as "no network" and "no electricity," optimizing traditional trade finance processes and supporting cost reduction and efficiency enhancement.

ChainCatcher news, according to a report by The Paper, Mu Changchun, director of the Digital Currency Research Institute of the People's Bank of China, stated at the main forum of the "2023 China International Financial Annual Forum" during the 2023 China International Service Trade Fair on financial services that after completing the upgrade of currency, the payment tools for the entire society will also need to be upgraded to the new currency accordingly.The first to achieve the upgrade will be the payment tools used in retail scenarios, specifically using digital RMB as the payment tool in all retail scenarios. Wallet providers such as WeChat, Alipay, the commercial bank's mobile banking app, and other third-party payment institution apps, as well as digital RMB operating institutions, must have compliance awareness, obtain the corresponding financial licenses, and comply with regulations. In the short term, we can first unify the QR code standards from a technical perspective to achieve mutual recognition of barcodes; in the long term, we will steadily realize the upgrade of payment tools.The payment tools used in wholesale payment scenarios also need to be upgraded. Currently, the interbank payment clearing system and the internal systems of commercial banks that support wholesale payments are operating normally and can meet the needs of China's economic development. To avoid wasting existing systems and resources, there is no need to replace them with a central bank digital currency system, but we can achieve seamless connectivity by ensuring that digital RMB is fully interoperable with existing electronic payment tools and commercial bank deposits.Additionally, for financial market infrastructures that were previously uncovered, digital RMB can be used for settlement, and smart contracts can be utilized to achieve delivery versus payment (DVP) and payment versus payment (PVP), thereby improving the efficiency of wholesale payments.

ChainCatcher News, Mu Changchun, the director of the Digital Currency Research Institute of the People's Bank of China, spoke and answered hot questions about the "Currency Bridge" project at the 2022 Hong Kong FinTech Week. Mu Changchun stated: "We have built a system for the 'Currency Bridge', with the core being the Currency Bridge blockchain. The 'Currency Bridge' project adopts a Lego-like architecture, which is a modular architecture. Compared to the 'chimney architecture', the advantage of a modular architecture is that it allows interaction and collaboration between modules, significantly reducing compliance and regulatory costs, and enhancing the flexibility and adaptability of business governance, regulation, and policy systems among multiple countries (regions)."When asked why the "Currency Bridge" uses blockchain technology, Mu Changchun stated that although blockchain technology is not the most suitable technology for payment systems, considering the numerous participants in the Currency Bridge and the different cross-border payment regulatory systems and capital flow management systems in various jurisdictions, a decentralized technological approach is a more suitable choice to better address issues such as multi-party trust and privacy protection. (Source link)

Chain Catcher News, Mu Changchun, director of the Digital Currency Research Institute of the People's Bank of China, delivered a keynote speech on digital renminbi and smart contracts at the 2022 China International Finance Annual Forum on September 2. Mu Changchun stated that in the top-level design of the digital renminbi, programmability has been achieved by loading smart contracts that do not affect the currency's functions, allowing for automatic payment transactions based on conditions and rules agreed upon by the parties involved, while ensuring safety and compliance.Mu Changchun also mentioned that the construction of the digital renminbi smart contract ecosystem should adhere to the principles of openness and open source, encouraging the whole society to participate in the development and innovative application of contract templates, and establishing a rich, efficient, and convenient supply system for smart contracts. The digital renminbi smart contract ecosystem service platform can become an open platform similar to mobile application markets, where various institutions can provide smart contract services, and users can combine and use them like building blocks according to their preferences, achieving openness, open source, co-construction, and sharing.According to Mu Changchun, the application scenarios of digital renminbi smart contracts are currently quite extensive, having been successfully applied in areas such as government subsidies, retail marketing, and prepaid fund management. "Digital renminbi smart contracts can reduce the performance costs of economic activities, optimize the business environment, and promote the deep development of the digital economy. With the gradual improvement of the underlying platform and related institutional arrangements, it will accelerate implementation on a larger scale." (Source link)