China’s top anti-corruption watchdog has accused Yao, who was the inaugural director of the PBOC’s institute overseeing digital currency research, and later head of the securities regulator’s tech-supervision department, of taking bribes through cryptocurrencies.
The country’s first cryptocurrency-related corruption case raises questions as to whether Beijing may slow the pace of the digital yuan’s roll-out to strengthen internal supervision.
Those pilot tests have been extended to 26 regions across 17 provinces, but China’s central bank has given no timetable for an official launch.
“We do have some bottlenecks in adopting the digital yuan today,” said Charles Chang, director of the Fintech Research Centre at Shanghai-based Fudan University.
