Chinese media reported this week that the country’s central bank is working with e-commerce behemoth JD.com on mobile apps that will support a digital yuan.

Why should we care?
China’s digital currency project is a 6-year-old initiative, making China a trailblazer in the race to develop a central bank-backed cryptocurrency. The digital currency is a response to the country’s rapid commerce and payment digitization and is currently being tested by state-owned banks and several companies backed by Tencent and ride-hailing company Didi. With JD.com, the digital currency could support online shopping and physical retail use cases, a solution that could rival WeChat and Alipay. According to Chinese tech news outlet TechNode, JD.com has entered into a “strategic partnership” with the country’s central bank to build mobile and blockchain platforms for the central bank digital currency. The digital currency has no firm launch date, and an early test with the China Construction Bank that was briefly available to the public last month was quickly shut down after it gained significant attention.