Review and Prospect of Digital Finance Research

Digital finance plays a prominent role in promoting economic development, improving efficiency, and reducing risks. By combing and summarizing literatures, this paper points out the context and key points of current digital finance research, which include network financing and digital currency, as well as shows the important achievements in the field of digital finance research. It is known that network financing takes many forms. Its driving factors include “hard power,” “soft power,” and the collective behavior of investors. The impact of network financing on the existing financial system is two-sided. Private digital currencies and central bank digital currencies have different design principles. It is generally believed that private digital currency cannot replace the currency, but central bank digital currency is able to do so. Both private and central bank digital currencies have some drawbacks that need to be addressed.