Men wearing masks pass a Gap store in a commercial area, while 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 test of the central bank’s digital currency, the city government announced over the weekend.
This marks the third major test of the digital currency under development by the People’s Bank of China. The cities of Shenzhen and Suzhou have had similar experiences in recent months.
In that test, Beijing said it would select 50,000 from a group of candidates to receive 200 yuan, or about $ 30 each, in digital currency. Recipients can spend the money at designated offline locations or 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 digital currency during the Lunar New Year 2021, as shown by a screenshot of a sign-up page in the JD shopping app.
Evelyn Cheng | CNBC
Vouchers are valid from February 10th to 17th. The digital currency test is only open to those with a Chinese identification number or residence permit from Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan.
The People’s Bank of China is developing a digital currency that is expected to work similarly to transactions through existing payment applications. Mobile payment, mainly through the Alipay app affiliated with Alibaba and Tencent’s Wechat Pay, has replaced money in recent years as the predominant form of consumer payment in China.
Unlike digital currencies known as bitcoin, the one being developed by the central bank of China is controlled by a single power, rather than a decentralized system managed by users around the world.