"Libra"searches popular in China, not United States. According to Google Trends's new data, Chineses users are showing most interest against Libra. Even though Facebook is vehemently verboten in the nation, which has also blocked most mainstream Western media outlets, the cryptocurrency has reached the peak of the Chinese internet.

In result, since Libra could potentially pose a challenge to Chinese cross -border payments, monetary policy, and even financial sovereignty, Facebook's plans to create their cryptocurrency, Libra, have forced China's central bank to step up research into creating their digital currency.

People's Bank of China officially announced, "If Libra is widely used for payment, cross-border payments, in particular, would it be able to function as money and accordingly have a large influence on monetary policy, financial stability, and the international monetary system?" said Wang Xin, who is a director of the People's Bank of China(PBOC).

Not only people in China but also PBOC are paying great attention to Facebook's Libra project. The PBOC was the first major central bank to study digital currencies in 2014, a step to counter the challenge from cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.

Wang added, "We had an early start but lost of work is needed to consolidate our lead. If the digital currency is closely associated with the US dollar, it could create a scenario under which sovereign currencies would coexist with US dollar-centric digital currencies."

Wei-Tek Tasi, who is the chief scientist at Tiande Technologies, a Chinese blockchain firm, believes Libra is vital in China despite the political regulations. Tasi believes that stable-coins represent a new financial frontier in the new currency competition, and said "Some people may think it's just a US company launching a stablecoin, not a fiat currency, and this company cannot operate in China, so Libra is not important. Is it? Now that the government and central banks from the US and Europe are all in on this, even though they may disagree on their positions. It has become a national level public debate. How could it not be significant?"

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