Men with face masks walk past a Gap store in a shopping area as the country is hit by an outbreak of the new coronavirus in Beijing, China, February 7, 2020.
Jason Lee | Reuters
BEIJING – The capital of China will hand out about $ 1.5 million in a limited thesis of the central bank’s digital currency, the municipal government announced at the weekend.
This is the third important test of the digital currency developed by the People’s Bank of China. The cities of Shenzhen and Suzhou have been conducting similar experiments over the past few months.
In this trial, Beijing said it would select 50,000 from a pool of applicants to receive 200 yuan, or about $ 30 each, in the digital currency. Recipients can spend the money on designated offline locations or on parts of the e-commerce site JD.com during the upcoming lunar New Year holiday.
The city of Beijing is launching a test of the PBoC’s digital currency during the 2021 lunar year, as evidenced by a screenshot of a sign-up page on JD’s store app.
Evelyn Cheng | CNBC
The vouchers are valid from February 10 to February 17. The digital currency test is only open to those with a Chinese ID number, or residence permits from Hong Kong, Macao or Taiwan.
The People’s Bank of China has developed a digital currency that is expected to work in a similar way to transactions through existing payment programs. Mobile payment, mainly through the Alipay-affiliated Alipay app and Tencent’s Wechat Pay, has replaced cash over the past few years as the predominant form of consumer payment in China.
Unlike well-known digital currencies such as bitcoin, the one developed by China’s central bank is controlled by a single power, rather than by a decentralized system run by users around the world.