For those who can't quite reconcile the Chinese government's tentative acceptance of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies with the inherently anarchistic principles espoused by bitcoin's creator, here's yet another clue to support the theory that the Chinese government has decided to tolerate and regulate digital currencies in hopes of learning how to apply the technology to its own digital currency.

At its core, the hypothetical "digital RMB" will subvert bitcoin's core mission – that is, to enable individuals to circumvent government control and monitoring. Instead, Chinese policy makers intend to use the currency to strengthen the Communist Party's ability to monitor its citizens for evidence of money laundering and other financial crimes, as MarketWatch noted earlier this year.