China is moving its digital currency test to a whole new level by giving away more than 10 million yuan in a new lottery. The state-run People’s Bank of China gave 50,000 randomly selected citizens a “red packet” worth 200 yuan ($30) to spend at several thousand designated retailers in Shenzhen’s Luohu district.
The winners will be required to download a digital Renminbi app in order to obtain the digital yuan last April when it ran a pilot program that reportedly included US companies like McDonald’s and Subway. Unlike decentralized cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, however, China’s digital currency would be controlled by the country’s central bank.
The experiment is part of China’s push towards a cashless society, with the intent that digital currencies can be more easily controlled and monitored than hard cash or bitcoin-like cryptocurrencies. Digital payments that go through companies like Tencent and AliPay are already very popular in the country.
China’s digital cash trials drew the attention of other countries in the region. The Bank of Japan just revealed its plans to start experiments with digital currency, though it has yet to release any specific details. Meanwhile, Japan’s Finance Minister Taro Aso recently expressed concerns over digital cash, saying it could pose a threat to the current global reserve currency system.
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