On December 16, 2025, the Shanghai Headquarters of the People's Bank of China once again issued an urgent risk warning through the official website of the Shanghai Local Financial Supervision Administration and major authoritative media, pointing out that fraudulent activities under the guise of the digital yuan have seen a recent resurgence.
The warning explicitly states that the digital yuan is a legal tender in digital form, adopting a two-tier operational structure of "central bank - digital yuan business operating institutions." It has not established any non-governmental promotion centers, nor do any digital yuan promotion officer exams exist. Criminals publish false information on online platforms, using high-return lures such as "recruiting promotion officers," promising "conversion subsidies," and "flow rebates" to induce the public to join chat groups, thereby carrying out fraud and even pyramid schemes.
The central bank clearly stated that the digital yuan is a legal currency used for payment and has no room for speculation. Any claims of "conversion subsidies," "flow rebates," "high returns," or encouragement to speculate on currency are fraudulent. Criminals often use such rhetoric to induce the public to disclose sensitive personal information or participate in pyramid schemes. The public must remain highly vigilant, stay clear-headed about investments promising "steady profits without losses," and beware of being deceived. If encountering suspected fraud, please report it to the police immediately.
This warning, rather than just exposing a criminal tactic, serves to clarify the essence of a major innovation. It forces us to think beyond the noise of scams: when a financial infrastructure designed to enhance economic efficiency is instead "parasitized" by crime due to its own advanced nature, how do we defend the pure land for its growth? The outcome of this contest will directly determine whether this technology becomes a glamorous cover for scams in the future or a trusted cornerstone supporting the circulation of the next generation's digital asset world. Every instance of public awareness and vigilance is a powerful reinforcement of this foundation.
I. Chain Analysis: The "Viral" Spread Path of New Scams
The latest official warning outlines the complete chain of current digital yuan scams in detail. The fraud begins with carefully packaged advertisements placed on social platforms and short video channels, claiming to "recruit official digital yuan promotion officers."
Once a user makes contact, they are induced to join a seemingly legitimate chat group. Inside the group, "lecturers" conduct brainwashing propaganda through online meetings, display forged "red-headed documents" and "authorization certificates," and organize so-called "official promotion officer qualification exams."
The core of the scam lies in the "high rebate" rhetoric. Criminals claim that after users convert their own funds into digital yuan and deposit them into fake platforms or wallets controlled by them, they can not only obtain "static returns" far higher than bank deposits but also earn "dynamic commissions" by "referring" and developing downlines.
This is consistent with the fraud model exposed by CCTV in April, when criminal gangs spread the rumor that "Shanghai is about to establish a digital yuan bank" and used a 2%-5% "conversion subsidy" as a gimmick to defraud.
It is worth noting that this warning specifically emphasizes the "Four No's" principle: do not seek high rebates, do not engage in "referring," do not click on unknown links, and do not join groups or attend meetings. This precisely corresponds to every key link in the fraud process.
II. Deep Dive into the Fault Lines: The Three Cognitive Soils Where Scams Breed
The persistence of digital yuan scams stems from criminals skillfully exploiting three major cognitive gaps during the popularization of new financial technology.
First is the confusion between legal tender and investment targets. Although the central bank has repeatedly emphasized that the digital yuan is the digital form of the renminbi, positioned as cash in circulation (M0), equivalent to banknotes and coins, with its primary function being payment and having no room for speculation.
However, the combination of the words "digital" and "currency" easily leads some members of the public to associate it with volatile crypto assets like Bitcoin, mistakenly believing it has appreciation potential. Criminals exploit this association, fabricating lies about "early hoarding for appreciation."
Second is the confusion between the official structure and non-governmental fantasies. The digital yuan adopts a clear two-tier structure of "central bank - operating institutions," with designated commercial banks responsible for public exchange and circulation services.
However, the general public lacks understanding of this rigorous official operational system. Fraudsters fabricate non-existent institutions such as "Digital Yuan Promotion Center" and "Market Development Department," forging a complete image and exploiting public trust in state credit endorsement to carry out fraud.
Finally, there is the confusion between technological innovation and fraudulent rhetoric. Technological innovations like the programmability and smart contracts of the digital yuan are originally intended for compliant scenarios such as targeted payments and transaction condition triggering.
Fraud gangs, however, package these professional terms into investment gimmicks like "smart dividend distribution" and "automatic rollover," distorting the financial infrastructure serving the real economy into a tool for illegal fundraising promising "steady profits without losses."
III. Deceptive Networks: The Concealed Mutation of Scams in the Social Media Era
Current digital yuan scams exhibit highly organized, networked, and concealed characteristics, making them more deceptive. The main arena for fraudulent activities has completely shifted to various social apps and short video platforms.
Criminal groups precisely reach potential victims by purchasing traffic, publishing carefully edited "expert interpretation" videos, and posting "hotspot-grabbing" comments under financial-related topics.
They even operate a整套 of seemingly正规 online portals, complete with fake "news updates," "partner organization" logos, and develop简陋 APPs or web wallets to display fake "profit growth," creating the illusion of a well-funded platform.
More危害性 is that some fraud models have彻底 turned into pyramid schemes. They are no longer satisfied with defrauding a single sum of money but use a "develop downlines - tiered commission" mechanism to induce early victims, in order to recoup losses or obtain commissions, to actively pull friends and relatives into the trap, achieving "viral" spread.
This model transforms fraudulent activities from simple economic crimes into恶性 behaviors that破坏 social trust foundations and cause wider harm. The official risk warning specifically emphasizes "not engaging in 'referring'," which is a targeted strike against this mutated fraud.
IV. Precise Defusing: The Escalation and Coordination of Official Response Strategies
Faced with constantly evolving fraudulent methods, the response strategies of regulators and official agencies are also showing new characteristics of systematization, precision, and normalization.
A significant improvement in this warning from the Shanghai Headquarters of the People's Bank of China is the provision of extremely specific, actionable behavioral guidelines—the "Four No's" principle. This is different from relatively vague warnings in the past; it directly builds the defense line into every specific scenario the public might encounter: vigilance against profits, vigilance against links, vigilance against social groups.
The authorities are trying to use the most straightforward language to sever every key operational node of the fraud. For example, clearly informing the public that the only official download channel for the Digital Yuan App is mobile app stores or the website (www.pbcdci.cn), and any other links are traps.
At the same time, the cross-departmental coordinated打击 mechanism is being strengthened. This risk warning was issued by the Shanghai Headquarters of the People's Bank of China and officially posted on the website of the Shanghai Local Financial Supervision Administration, reflecting the linkage between financial regulation and local financial governance departments.
As seen from the early case转载 by the Shenqiu County Government, local government platforms are becoming important regional rumor-refuting and warning阵地 against nationally mobile fraudulent information. This protective network, from central to local, from vertical regulation to horizontal linkage, is being gradually woven tighter.
V. Value Reshaping: Digital Yuan as the Compliant Cornerstone of the RWA Ecosystem
Amidst the喧嚣 and scams, we need to冷静 examine the long-term strategic value of the digital yuan as a national financial infrastructure. A consensus is forming that the real stage for the digital yuan perhaps lies in providing the core compliant value circulation foundation for the next generation of digital assets—especially the tokenization of Real World Assets (RWA).
RWA aims to convert physical assets such as bonds, real estate, and intellectual property into on-chain digital certificates. One of its core challenges is how to safely and efficiently interact with a stable, trustworthy, and compliant legal currency system to complete the entire process from subscription, trading, to dividend distribution.
Current solutions mostly rely on stablecoins, but they themselves are still plagued by issuer credit, regulation, and price volatility. The digital yuan, as a native digital fiat currency, offers a better solution.
Its "payment is settlement" feature can greatly improve RWA transaction efficiency; its embedded "controllable anonymity" feature can meet compliance requirements like anti-money laundering while ensuring necessary transaction privacy; and most importantly, it is backed by the complete national sovereign credit and financial regulatory framework.
This provides end-to-end compliance guarantee for the entire lifecycle of RWA, from issuance and circulation to settlement. One can imagine that in the future, the interest payment of a digital bond could be automatically executed from the issuer's digital yuan wallet to thousands of holders' wallets via a smart contract, a process that is transparent, instant, and tamper-proof.
VI. The Layered Future of a Healthy Digital Yuan Ecosystem
For the digital yuan to truly function as the "trusted artery" of the RWA and even broader digital financial ecosystem, the primary task currently is to thoroughly purify its own growth environment.
Continuous scams consume social cognitive resources and damage the public's trust foundation in this technology. If the term "digital yuan" continues to be associated with negative words like "fraud" and "pyramid schemes" in public discourse, its credibility as a serious financial infrastructure will be severely eroded.
This, in turn, will increase the social acceptance cost of truly valuable applications and hinder the process of their deep integration with the real economy. Therefore, the current severe crackdowns and high-frequency warnings are essentially clearing the path and defining the runway for future innovation.
From a more macro perspective, the promotion of the digital yuan and the development of innovative formats like RWA must be examined under the fundamental coordinate of "serving the real economy."
Whether it is combating fraud or exploring integration with RWA, the criterion for success lies in whether it can more efficiently, at lower cost, and more safely meet the real needs of实体产业 in payment clearing, asset circulation, supply chain finance, and other areas.
Looking ahead, a healthy digital yuan ecosystem should be a multi-layered system with clear stratification and well-defined responsibilities: the bottom layer is the pure and stable legal currency payment system guaranteed by the central bank; the middle is the compliant business applications developed by financial institutions and tech companies based on its characteristics.
The top layer would be innovative scenarios such as RWA trading. Innovation at every layer cannot come at the cost of distorting the legal attributes of the underlying currency. The risk warning once again reinforces this unshakable cornerstone.
Beneath the醒目 "Four No's" principle published on the official website of the Shanghai Local Financial Supervision Administration lies a deeper question for our times.
When fraudsters become proficient in using community operations and online meetings to package scams, are we prepared to use equal or even greater efficiency and wisdom to convey truly valuable financial knowledge to the public?
In this race for cognition, every successful scam consumes the social trust capital of a national-level technological innovation; and every timely warning and thorough exposure is laying the most indispensable cornerstone of trust for the future value internet era potentially driven by the digital yuan.
Partial data source articles:
· "Risk Warning Regarding Recent Fraud Under the Guise of Digital Yuan Promotion"
· "Digital Currency Research Institute of the Central Bank: Rumor Refutation!"
· "Shanghai Headquarters of the Central Bank: Digital Yuan Has No Room for Speculation, Beware of Deception"
Author: Liang Yu Editor: Zhao Yidan
