Men wearing facial masks pass by a Gap store in a shopping area as the country is hit by an outbreak of the new coronavirus, in Beijing, China, on February 7, 2020.
Jason Lee | Reuters
BEIJING – The Chinese capital will hand out about $ 1.5 million in a limited trial of the central bank’s digital currency, the city government announced over the weekend.
This marks the third major test of digital currency in development by the People’s Bank of China. The cities of Shenzhen and Suzhou have conducted similar experiments in recent months.
In this essay, Beijing said it will select 50,000 from a group of applicants to receive 200 yuan, or about $ 30 each, in digital currency. Recipients can spend the money on designated offline locations or in parts of the JD.com e-commerce site during the upcoming Lunar New Year holidays.
Beijing City launches a test of the PBoC’s digital currency during the Lunar New Year of 2021, as shown in a screenshot of a registration page on JD’s shopping app.
Evelyn Cheng | CNBC
Vouchers are valid from 10 to 17 February. The digital currency test is only open to those who have a Chinese identification number or residence permit from Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan.
The People’s Bank of China has been developing a digital currency that is expected to work similarly to transactions using existing payment applications. Mobile payment, mainly through the Alibay app, affiliated with Alibaba, and Tencent’s Wechat Pay, has replaced cash in recent years as the main form of consumer payment in China.
Unlike digital currencies known as bitcoin, the one being developed by China’s central bank is controlled by a single power, rather than a decentralized system managed by users around the world.