China’s new sovereign digital currency, Digital Yuan has become a hot topic around the world. In the latest development, close to 20,000 transactions were paid for with Digital Yuan within 24 hours through e-commerce company JD.com as it conducted a real-world trial.
The residents of the country actively participated in the trial of its digital currency in Suzhou, a city in East China’s Jiangsu Province and the largest online payment reportedly surpassed 10,000 Yua 80% of the participants for the trial were made by the younger generation who were born between 1980-1990.
JD.com was not the only platform that participated in the trial. There were nearly 10,000 physical shops in Suzhou that took part in the real-world trial for Digital Yuan at the “Double Twelve” shopping festival.
Cao Yin, who happens to be the Managing Director of the Digital Renaissance Foundation in Shanghai was quoted saying,
“As far as I know, the PBC is also hiring talent from a lot of private digital currency firms and internet companies to develop the digital currency. It hopes to implement the digital yuan using market-oriented means”
However, despite the fact that China has become the frontrunner in developing its central bank’s digital currency [CBDC] as it is currently deploying it on major e-commerce platforms within the country, the process has been cautious and not hasty. And it was something that Yin himself stressed.
Scaling Digital Yuan
China is gearing up for the implementing Digital Yuan on a massive scale and was looking to use the digital currency at the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.
This was part of the pilot programs launched by the People’s Bank of China back in April in cities such as Shenzhen, Chengdu, Suzhou, and Xiongan. Till last month, the programs had conducted more than 4 million transactions, which roughly totaled to $300 million,
Previously, reports regarding Hong Kong’s central bank working with the People’s Bank of China for the trial use of the Digital Yuan emerged. This was the first instance of China’s central bank digital currency’s use outside the country, this initiative was for the purpose of cross-border payments.