Chinese Digital Yuan Records 20K Transactions in its Trial Phase

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The Chinese have conducted roughly 20,000 transactions through an e-commerce company JD.com in a trial of the country’s digital yuan.

Following the distribution of the China digital Yuan in Suzhou municipal district by the government, in a roughly $3 million drop. The residents have roughly done 20,000 transactions in a trial phase done through an e-commerce company JD.com.

According to a local media outlet South China Morning Post, JD.com reported that 80% of participants born in the 1980s and 1990s used the platform to conduct transactions in the digital yuan. The transactions which started on Friday evening, were reportedly larger than $1,527 per participant.

This is part of the plans of Chinese government to test the digital yuan before nationwide release. This appears to maybe serve as one of the possible more tests before official launch for use.

The city’s municipal government reportedly gave away roughly 100,000 “red packets” — a traditional method of presenting gifts in China now popularized digitally on platforms like WeChat Pay and Alipay. The red packets contained $3 million in digital yuan in a lottery for residents.

Recall that the city of Shenzhen launched a similar pilot program to support the digital currency promotion. Shenzhen reportedly conducted a public giveaway of $1.5 million to 50,000 lottery winners.

“In 2021, China will continue to look for more scenarios to test the digital yuan, but an extensive launch is still unlikely. The government would likely continue controlled trials until officials are certain the digital currency can be safely issued,” said Cao Yin, managing director of the Digital Renaissance Foundation in Shanghai.

“We have only ourselves to compete with on this matter, and there’s no need to rush it.”

Since after the launch, the central bank has announced it would expand the number of testing cities to include Beijing and Tianjin as well as the surrounding province of Hebei.