China Declares War on Crypto — While the U.S. Turns It Into Policy

Beijing calls crypto a “systemic threat.” Washington calls it innovation. Two financial superpowers are racing to define the future of money — one block at a time.

⚡ Quick Hits

• 🇨🇳 PBoC Governor Pan Gongsheng: crypto and stablecoins pose “serious risks” to monetary sovereignty
• 🧠 Worldcoin déjà vu: China’s Ministry of State Security warns a “foreign firm” is using crypto to harvest biometric data
• 💴 e-CNY hits ¥14 trillion+ in processed transactions since 2019
• 📊 Stablecoin research grants: ¥200–300K (≈$28K–$42K) for monitoring tech
• 🇺🇸 GENIUS Act: U.S. legislation fast-tracking dollar-backed stablecoin adoption under Trump

🧨 Beijing Doubles Down

At the Financial Street Forum in Beijing, Pan Gongsheng, Governor of the People’s Bank of China, made his stance unmistakable: crypto isn’t innovation — it’s instability.

“Stablecoins are still in their early stages. They fail basic AML and KYC standards, create speculation, and heighten global financial risk.”

While the U.S. rolls out frameworks to institutionalize stablecoins, China is fortifying its 2017 ban — now enforced through financial, cybersecurity, and national-security channels.

Pan’s comments came just as the Ministry of State Security warned against a foreign company accused of collecting biometric data through crypto transactions — a thinly veiled jab at Sam Altman’s Worldcoin.

Though unnamed, the agency tied these activities to potential “national-security threats,” reinforcing Beijing’s fear that decentralized systems could become Trojan horses for data extraction.

🧱 The State Strikes Back — Enter the e-CNY

Crypto may be outlawed, but China isn’t anti-digital. It’s just anti-anarchy.

The e-CNY, China’s central-bank digital currency (CBDC), has already processed more than ¥14 trillion across over two dozen pilot cities since 2019 — effectively the world’s most advanced digital-currency rollout.

The PBoC is expanding e-CNY integration through:

• Broader access via commercial banks
• Cross-border pilot programs
• Research on stablecoin monitoring systems funded by ¥300K grants

Translation: Beijing wants to control the tech it bans elsewhere.

Pan also confirmed that the PBoC will resume secondary-market bond trading, previously halted amid liquidity concerns — a subtle move to rebuild China’s yield curve and maintain monetary flexibility.

“We will uphold a supportive stance and a moderately loose policy to sustain recovery,” Pan said.

Meanwhile, Zhu Hexin, head of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, unveiled nine new trade measures to encourage cross-border financial innovation — a possible prelude to international e-CNY trials.

🇺🇸 The U.S. Moves the Other Way

Across the Pacific, the GENIUS Act — signed under Trump — is turning stablecoins into a weapon of soft power.

By providing a clear legal framework for dollar-backed stablecoin issuance, the U.S. is exporting financial infrastructure the same way it once exported software.

What Beijing calls a “risk,” Washington calls monetary diplomacy.

Stablecoins, in the American model, aren’t just digital cash — they’re the next layer of dollar dominance.

⚖️ East vs. West: Two Blueprints for Money

For China, stability means control. For the U.S., control means liquidity.

Each is building a new financial order — one closed, one composable.

🧭 The Bigger Picture

This is no longer a debate about Bitcoin. It’s a currency cold war — fought through policy, code, and ideology.

• China’s e-CNY: A centralized, programmable yuan designed to anchor its domestic economy and counter U.S. financial hegemony.
• America’s GENIUS Act: A bid to weaponize stablecoins as the digital frontier of the U.S. dollar.

As Thailand, Singapore, and other Asian nations experiment in between these extremes, the global South becomes the testing ground for which model wins: state-controlled trust or open-source liquidity.

TL;DR

• 🇨🇳 China reaffirms full crypto ban — calls stablecoins a financial threat
• ⚠️ MSS warns about a foreign company (read: Worldcoin) harvesting biometrics
• 💴 e-CNY transactions exceed ¥14T; state funds stablecoin monitoring research
• 🇺🇸 U.S. GENIUS Act pushes stablecoin adoption and dollar expansion
• 🌏 Global divide deepens: digital sovereignty vs. decentralized finance