Reuters reports that a top Securities and Exchange Commission official said that China's planned digital yuan will not dethrone the dollar, citing the growth of so-called stablecoins backed by the greenback.

The People's Bank of China work on a digital yuan - part of a push to internationalise the currency and reduced its - is far ahead of similar initiatives in other major economies. That has led some analysts to question if the faster pace from the globe's second largest economy could lead the yuan to gain dominance over the dollar.

Yet Hester Peirce, a Republican commissioner at the SEC, said the rise of stablecoins would maintain the U.S. currency's status.

"Even in 2021, there's been a tremendous growth in stablecoins - these are essentially private digital dollars," she said. "That, effectively, may be our answer to the Chinese CBDC (central bank digital currency). It may be just private stablecoins."

"If they're dollar-backed then I think that the dollar will still be quite relevant," said Peirce.