In the 2014 Spring Summit of China Internet Finance Conference, a deputy director of People's Bank of China deliverd a speech about internet finance and mentioned bitcoin.

He says:” Now, the currency is fiat currency, sovereign currency. Is bitcoin a kind of currency? Yes, it is, but it’s not a fiat currency, it is a kind of electronic commodity currency, it’s a kind of currency embraced by economist Hayek, it has features like gold payment, etc.. Bitcoin breaks through the concept of sovereignty. If the Fed one day says bitcoin can be exchanged into USD, it will certainly become popular all over the world, but now only few central banks recognize it. Generally speaking, countries do not affirm its legitimacy as a sovereign currency, but people’s willingness to accept bitcoin is another matter. So you can understand bitcoin as a kind of nongovernmental currency, so it is a currency, but it is not a fiat currency. This is a breakthrough of the concept of sovereignty currency”.

See our analysis of the impact of this news on the market of bitcoin here:

GMT20150329 9：00 Trend analysis of democurrency

See the director’s full speech(in Chinese) here:

http://iof.hexun.com/2014-03-28/163458353.html