Why would anyone want to buy a centralized cryptocurrency which is controlled by a bank from China?
If I want anything like this, I would rather buy fiat. If I want some kind of independence and anonymity, I'll go for bitcoin.
I don't believe it will have a big success.
Why did the chinese panic sell in recent hours at the news of the government wanting to do something about bitcoin? (they didn't even mention the word ban as far as I know..) the government has a very powerful network effect. They can trigger panic sell on the weak holders, they will make them run for the comfort of a regulated and stable price currency. But of course, you'll never get rich holding a boring ass centralized, regulated closed source crypto so they will eventually come back to the excitement of bitcoin.
But it doesn't answer my question.
If the bitcoin holders are in panic, why would they buy another cryptocurrency instead of "safe" fiat?
What would be the difference?
the point is that the china central banks altcoin WILL BE THEIR FIAT
to citizens they wont see the difference at first. the banks will just swap their old database to a new database in very laymans terms. citizens wont notice the difference to how their bank balance is stored. as thats behind closed doors. but later they will start offering NFC smartwatches or smartphone apps instead of debit cards/paper cash.
the benefit i can see is instead of card cloning and merchants storing card information. the hardware wallet(smartphone/watch/wristbands) just sends a signed tx to the merchant, making each transaction unique to that purchase. to avoid card cloning or merchant hacking. due to the fact a banking customer keeps the privkey safe in their own device.
the downside i can see is lose the device, lose access to your income and starve. in a utopian situation that was permissionless.. so to solve that, ofcourse the banks will have access to your key to 're-credit' you or give you a new device. making it still a permissioned/middleman payment system, meaning the system wont change much just the way a customer pays (NFC smartphone/watch instead of magnetic strip debit card or paper cash) will change
That answers it more clearly and I have to admit that it makes sense.
I saw on it only from the economic point of view, but you're right, that it could be successful because of its better technology.