The 13.61 billion e-CNY represented roughly 0.13% of the 10.47 trillion yuan in circulation at the end of 2022.

The People’s Bank of China, or PBoC, has begun including the country’s central bank digital currency, thee-CNY, in reports measuring the  quantum of currency in circulation.   

According to a 2022 financial statistics report released on Jan. 10, the PBoC said there was 13.61 billion digital yuan worth roughly $ 2 billion at the time of publication — in circulation as of Dec. 31. The currency in circulation grew at a rate of 15.3 in December, with the broad money supply reported to be 266.43 trillion yuan. 

The PBoC reported adding the digital yuan to its figures hadn't caused “ notable changes ” to growth rates. The 13.61 billione-CNY represented roughly 0.13 of the10.47 trillion yuan in circulation at the end of 2022.   

China, the world’s second- largest economy, was one of the first to begin trialing a CBDC in select cities and regions — a  design that was ultimately made available to visiting foreign athletes at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics in February. still,  operation of the digital currency has been low, according to a former PBoC research director. Transactions totaled roughly $ 14 billion as of October,  further than two years after thee-CNY was introduced in April 2020.  

Related: Hong Kong lawmaker wants to turn CBDC into stablecoin featuring DeFi   

The central bank announced In September that it planned to expand the deployment of thee-CNY to the provinces of Guangdong, Jiangsu, Hebei and Sichuan “ at a proper time. ” still, neither the PBoC nor Chinese government officials have introduced a strategy for rolling out the CBDC to the entirety of China’s1.4 billion residents.

(TURNER WRIGHT, Cointelegraph, 2023)