Trillion-Dollar Shift In Payment And Crypto Rails
Chinese Yuan (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)
Tim Graham/Getty Images
On January 1, 2026, the People’s Bank of China began paying interest on digital yuan balances held in user wallets. To some, it might have seemed like a small technical upgrade that was long overdue. Yet, it came with outsized implications: China has just made its central bank digital currency the first in the world to offer returns to ordinary holders.
As of the end of November 2025, the digital yuan has already processed over 3.48 billion transactions, totalling 16.7 trillion yuan ($2.38 trillion). By any measure, that is quite successful adoption. But that is just the baseline before the yield upgrade even took effect. Now, with interest-bearing status, the…
