According to the South China Morning Post report, Suzhou municipal government said that they are giving away RMB 20 million ($3 million) to residents via a lottery. A total of 100,000 digital red packets, each containing RMB 200 ($31), will be distributed to residents this week, the eve of the so-called Double Twelve shopping festival. Suzhou’s move came after Shenzhen launched the first large-scale public trial of the digital yuan’s beta version in October.
JD.com becomes the first online platform to accept digital yuan.
Chinese e-commerce firm JD.com said it became the first online platform to accept the country’s digital currency. Those who receive digital yuan can spend it on JD.com’s online shopping platform. This is not the first time that China is handing out a large sum of its digital currency. Last month, a total of 10 million yuan was handed out to citizens in China’s technology hub Shenzhen in a lottery. The central bank calls its project the Digital Currency Electronic Payment or DCEP, though it has remained quite tight-lipped about its development.
Central banks continue to explore digital currencies.
Several central banks are now actively exploring central bank digital currencies and making plans for real-world testing. Some smaller economies have already launched versions of their digital currencies. China is the only major economy to complete the development and initiating a full-fledged plan to test the digital yuan. As reported earlier, the Cayman island launched a national digital currency this year. Central banks of Canada, Japan, the Philippines, and many others are actively exploring CBDCs. The People’s Bank of China has been working on its national digital currency for the last five to six years and is now getting ready to issue it to the general public.
