China is well on its way to launching its own government-backed cryptocurrency having said earlier this month that they are trying to get it out ahead of Facebook’s Libra - which they see as a threat. 

The cryptocurrency, which will be handled, owned, and controlled by the Chinese central bank (PBoC) will be China’s offering as a cryptocurrency having clamped down on the well known decentralized offerings such as Bitcoin. China has also stamped out ICOs, yet remains positive on the power of the blockchain technology. 

Now, it has emerged that the Chinese government will roll out this central bank cryptocurrency to a number of institutions in the nation. Some of the more notable names include China’s “Amazon” Alibaba, as well as Tencent.

Sources close to the CHinese cryptocurrency effort, who spoke to Forbes under anonymity, have said that the technology behind the cryptocurrency has been ready since last year and that the cryptocurrency could launch as soon as November 11, China’s busiest shopping day, known as Singles Day.

Banks and businesses

Paul Schulte, who worked as global head of financial strategy for China Construction Bank until 2012, has told Forbes that the largest bank in the world, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the second largest bank in the world, the Bank of China, the Agricultural Bank of China; two of China’s largest financial technology companies, Alibaba and Tencent; and Union Pay, an association of Chinese banks, will be the ones who first get their hands on this new form of money.

The reason these institutions will have the first bite at this new cryptocurrency is because they will be entrusted with dispensing the coins to the some 1.3 billion Chinese citizens. This move to utilize a cryptocurrency in China is aimed at trying to replace fiat transactions, rather than say credit and debit cards. 

The latter aim would be for the currency to eventually be made available to spenders in the United States and elsewhere through relationships with correspondent banks in the West.

Better than Libra

While China has been rumoured to be working on its own cryptocurrency for some time now, it suddenly sprang into action on the news that Facebook would be attempting to launch its own offering for its over 2 billion users globally - Libra. 

In fact, they way in which the CHinese are trying to spread their coin around the country with these seven institutions bears remarkable similarity to the Libra Association. With the likes of PayPal, Uber, Vodafone and others part of Libra, it is likely these companies will offer early support and distribution of that coin.

For China and their cryptocurrency, they are trying to best theFacebook offering, and they are trying to do so with supposed better technology. 

Libra is being designed to handle 1,000 transactions per second, the Chinese cryptocurrency was designed to handle 300,000 transactions per second. For context, Mit has been said that during last year's Singles Day the peak volume of all transactions in China was 92,771 transactions per second, dwarfing what the other platforms could support, but well within the Chinese cryptocurrency specifications.