Men wearing face masks pass a Gap store in a commercial area as the country is hit by an outbreak of the new coronavirus in Beijing, China, on February 7, 2020.
Jason Lee | Reuters
BEIJING – China’s capital will distribute about $ 1.5 million in a limited process of the central bank’s digital currency, the municipal government announced over the weekend.
It marks the third major test of the developing digital currency by the People’s Bank of China. The cities of Shenzhen and Suzhou have conducted similar experiments in recent months.
In the process, Beijing said it would select 50,000 from a group of applicants to receive 200 yuan, or about $ 30 each, in digital currency. Beneficiaries can spend the money in designated offline locations or on parts of the JD.com e-commerce site during the upcoming Lunar New Year vacation.
Beijing is launching a test of PBoC’s digital currency during the Lunar New Year 2021, as shown in a screenshot of a registration page in JD’s shopping app.
Evelyn Cheng | CNBC
Tickets are valid from February 10 to February 17. The digital currency test is open only to those with a Chinese identity number or residence permits in Hong Kong, Macao or Taiwan.
The People’s Bank of China has developed a digital currency that is expected to function in a similar way to transactions through existing payment applications. Mobile payments, mainly through Tencent’s Alibaba and Wechat Pay affiliate Alipay, have replaced cash in recent years as the predominant 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 run by users around the world.