China is progressing well with its Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) project led by the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), the central bank of the country. After successfully completing the development of the Digital Yuan, the central bank initiated the testing phase of this centralized digital currency. The pilot trials of Digital Yuan are being conducted nationwide at the moment.
Since the time of the initiation of the digital currency’s testing phase, a large number of financial giants have shown their support for the country’s central bank digital currency. And there are more coming to support the testing of Digital Yuan with the passage of time. Now, three internet giants from the republic of China are the latest ones to participate in the testing of Digital Yuan.
As reported by local business media CLS on the 10th of December, three Chinese internet giant including the Shanghai-based Chinese video-sharing website Bilibili, the ride-hailing giant of China DiDi, and the food delivery application backed by Tencent Meituan have revealed their intention to support the coming testing of Digital Yuan in Suzhou, one of the major cities of China. This testing will see the distribution of $3 million worth of Digital Yuan among the winners of the lottery.
At the beginning of this month, the government of the Suzhou city of China announced to launch the trial of the country’s Central Bank Digital Currency while distributing 20 million yuan or $3 million worth of Digital Yuan. These free Digital Yuan tokens will be given in the form of red packets through the lottery. 200 yuan or $30 will be available in each red packet. Winners of the lottery will be allowed to spend their free digital yuan at online shops on JD.com an e-commerce giant. They spend them from the 11th of December to the 27th of December.
Reportedly, as three new firms have announced support for this huge trial of the digital currency therefore the winners of the lottery now will also be able to spend Digital Yuan on Meituan and DiDi as well. However, for using Digital Yuan on these firms, they will be required to activate their wallets of Digital Yuan with the world’s largest bank in terms of total assets Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.
On the other hand, they will be needed to activate their wallets with the Bank of China for spending Digital Yuan on Bilibili.