5 . AI, 5G, cloud computing and other digital technologies are not only changing our lives but shaping the economy as well.

China’s six major commercial banks are stepping up digital wallet efforts to provide new drive for the e-CNY (数字人民币) trials in the country, as reported by Shanghai Securities News on March 23.

“The functions and properties of the-CNY are exactly the same as those of the paper currency, except that the form is digital,” said Mu Changchun, head of the People’s Bank of China’s Digital Currency Research Institute.

Many people are puzzled by e-CNY and electronic payments. “Digital currency has the characteristics of both paper money and electronic payment,” said Wu Qianhong, a professor at the School Electronic and Information Engineering, Beihang University. “In theory, digital currency can replace paper money, Alipay and WeChat payments.”

Compared with Alipay and WeChat payments, e-CNY features anonymity (匿名性) and security. E-commerce platforms that accept payments via e-CNY will not have access to user’s personal information. E-CNY users can open an anonymous digital wallet by registering a mobile phone number, and telecom operators cannot disclose (泄露) customer information to the central bank or any third-party institutions. Mu noted that e-CNY user’s privacy protection is at the highest level among all the existing payment tools.

Similar to Alipay and WeChat payments, using e-CNY requires an account. After obtaining the other party’s account number, users can enter the amount of digital money to transfer (转钱) and then enter the payment password to complete the transaction (交易). However, the process behind these transfers are different. For electronic payments, the transfer has to go through a third party, and the receivers will get the transferred money only when they withdraw money from banks. But e-CNY transfers only need a payer and a receiver to complete a transaction. Therefore, it guarantees risk-free payments, according to Wu.

In simple terms, e-CNY can be considered “money”, while electronic payments are like “wallets”.

6 . You may have recently heard of NFT technology, which permits digital works of art to be collected and sold for millions of dollars.

But why would people pay so much money for something they cannot even touch? And what is driving the current rise in NFTs?     1    

What is an NFT?

NFT stands for non-fungible token(非同质化代币).     2     It is based on a technology called blockchain (区块链), which is also used with digital currency systems known as cryptocurrency.

What kinds of things are NFTs?

    3     They are usually bought with electronic money. The form of digital currency mainly used with NFTs is called ether. NFTs have been used to sell sports videos, pieces of land in worlds that only exist on computers and even the first-ever tweet by Twitter's founder.

What do critics say about NFTs?

Critics note that traditional art, like a painting, can be placed on a wall and looked at.     4     They point out that even though an artist can “own” a digital piece, others can easily save a copy of the same work as a file on their computer.

What are some prices for NFTs?

In February, a 10-second video showing an image of former U. S. President Donald Trump sold on an NFT marketplace for over $6 million. The first-ever published tweet from Twitter founder Jack Dorsey recently sold for nearly $3 million.

    5    

It is too early to say if NFTs are good investments. But so far, many people have items that are worth more than what they paid for them. This is no guarantee, however, that such buyers will be able to sell their digital objects for a profit.