Winter Olympics Financial News

Shenzhen, China, is readying a new digital yuan giveaway as the city looks to showcase the CBDC at a range of upcoming sporting events.

North Korea has 191 athletes signed up for the Asian Games starting next week, according to organisers, suggesting the country is poised to end its more than three-year isolation from the global sporting arena. North Koreans are listed on the Games' website for accredited media to compete in the Chinese city of Hangzhou in sports including athletics, gymnastics, basketball, football, boxing and weightlifting. North Koreans were similarly down to compete at a weightlifting tournament in Cuba in June, but they failed to show. North Korea closed its already tight borders in early 2020 following the outbreak of the pandemic and skipped the Tokyo Olympics, which were pushed back to 2021 because of Covid. It was then banned by the International Olympic Committee from the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics for failing to take part in Tokyo. There have been recent signs that the border restrictions have been eased slightly, with a taekwondo team allowed to travel to a competition last month in Kazakhstan. Prior to that, North Korea had not sent any of its domestic athletes to overseas competitions since the pandemic. The sporting action at the Games in Hangzhou starts on September 19, four days before the opening ceremony, with North Korea scheduled to face Taiwan in men's football that day. Leader Kim Jong Un is said to be an avid sports fan and Games hosts China are North Korea's longtime ally and main economic benefactor. North Korea has traditionally been especially strong in weightlifting, dominating the event at the Jakarta Asian Games in 2018 with eight golds. Ri Song Gum and Rim Un Sim, who both won gold in the women's weightlifting five years ago, are scheduled to appear in Hangzhou. But North Korea has also been among the

Russia has appointed Chechnya’s agriculture minister as the new head of Danone’s business in the country and tapped a Russian businessman to run Carlsberg’s operations there, cementing control of the Western multinationals’ Russian assets days after they were seized. President Vladimir Putin on Sunday signed a decree that effectively placed the local operations of the French food company and Danish brewing giant under government management. Russia’s unexpected seizure of assets belonging to two of the world’s largest consumer-goods companies marked an escalation in economic hostilities with the West amid the war in Ukraine.

Six members of the United States Congress have called on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Department of Justice to investigate Prometheum, claiming the firm has ties to the Chinese Communist Party. 

Student athletes from around the world will get the chance to use China’s digital yuan in July, with the CBDC put to use at the Summer World University Games in Chengdu.

Digital yuan payment adoption is stepping up in China ahead of the Asian Games, with venue cities rolling out a range of central bank digital currency (CBDC) transport options.

Electricity-free digital yuan payment adoption is reportedly on the rise in China – where smartphone users can spend their coins without a network connection.

Over the last couple of years, numerous reports have surfaced regarding governments worldwide exploring the issuance of their very own central bank digital currency. In fact, to date, nine countries have rolled out an active CBDC offering. In this regard, China’s digital yuan witnessed widespread use during the 2022 Winter Olympics. 

Central banks worldwide are pushing forward with digital asset projects despite the various crypto industry implosions over the past 12 months. China has rolled out its central bank digital currency (CBDC) to several cities, and it was available for use at the Winter Olympics.

The People’s Bank of China, or PBoC, will reportedly expand deployment of its central bank digital currency, the e-CNY, to four of the country’s provinces, including Guangdong.

To qualify, consumers need to to activate the wallet function of WeBank, Tencent’s digital banking arm, in the central bank's e-CNY app, which arrived in Android and Apple app stores in January.WeChat and Ant Group's Alipay currently control a combined 94% of China’s online payment market.The People's Bank of China rolled out digital yuan pilots in eleven additional cities last month after showcasing the currency internationally at the Winter Olympics.

The highly anticipated Beijing Winter Olympics have come and gone, and the soft launch of China’s CBDC, the e-CNY, had a very frosty reception at the event marked by international boycotts. That being said, it seems that China is just getting started.

China’s digital yuan is edging ever closer to a nationwide rollout, with banks, airports, and provinces looking to boost their adoption efforts following last month’s Winter Olympics and ahead of the Paralympic Winter Olympics.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to recognise the independence of two rebel-controlled regions in eastern Ukraine, the Kremlin said, breaching the 2015 protocol that ended the conflict in Donbas and further inflaming the tensions between the two countries.

Lael Brainard, a member of the Federal Reserve’s board of governors, encouraged the United States to be a leader in research and policy regarding central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, due to potential international developments.

Chinese banks and IT firms are continuing to roll out a diverse range of “hard” digital yuan wallets as they lay the ground for the full rollout of the nation’s central bank digital currency (CBDC).

The 2022 Winter Olympics participants, visitors and organizers could be spending more than $300,000 in China’s digital yuan every day, according to new reports citing officials from the People’s Bank of China.

The 2022 Winter Olympics, officially called the XXIV Olympic Winter Games, kicked off on Feb. 4 in Beijing with crypto being a major part of the event, partly because of the Chinese government’s digital currency ambitions.

Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva will be allowed to compete for a second gold medal at the Winter Olympics despite failing a pre-Games drug test.

A Ukrainian skeleton athlete flashed a small sign that read “ No War in Ukraine ” to the cameras as he finished a run at the Beijing Olympics on Friday night.

At the opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, the number of transactions using the digital yuan greatly exceeded Visa, according to a Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.