The government of Shenzhen, China, has announced via a WeChat post that its digital yuan test exercise, which went live on January 7, this year, has recorded massive success, as residents have used the central bank digital currency in nearly 140,000 transactions during the testing operation, reports TheBlock on January 18, 2021.
China’s CBDC Gaining Acceptance
China’s quest to be a world leader when it comes to central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) is going exactly as planned, as the nation’s digital yuan dubbed DC/EP is fast gaining acceptance by the masses.
As reported by on December 31, 2020, the government of Shenzhen announced plans to airdrop $3 million worth of digital yuan to residents as part of the third testing phase of DC/EP, and holders of the coin would be able to spend it at supported merchants between January 7 to 17, 2021.
Per sources close to the latest development, since the launch of the program, 95,628 recipients of DCEP have activated their wallets and a massive 139,794 transactions amounting to 18.22 million yuan (roughly $2.8 million) were carried out with the digital currency.
What’s more, Shenzhen authorities have also hinted via that out of the 100,000 people that participated in the project, a good number of them have topped up their DCEP wallets by a total of 1.51 million yuan (about $232k).
Everyone Wins
Though all unspent digital yuan as at January 17, will become void, participants wallets will however remain active and anyone interested in using the coin will be able to top up their wallet via their bank account. At present, DC/EP is reportedly accepted in 10,000 stores across the country
CBDCs are currently the hottest topics on the lips of central banks across the world, despite the fact that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has made it clear that CBDCs do not qualify as a legal tender.
And China’s digital yuan development has seen a significant level of success so far, as both state-run and private firms are actively getting involved in the project.
As informed on January 10, 2021, that the Agricultural Bank of China, one of the big four lenders in the country has started testing and optimizing ATM machines in the region, to enable them to support fiat-to-DCEP conversions.
