The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) completed its largest digital currency electronic payment (DC/EP) test in Shenzhen. Over $3 million of the central bank’s digital currency was given away to over 100,000 residents in Shenzhen via a red envelope lottery, a WeChat post confirmed. The 10-day long test, which began on January 7th, saw over 140,000 transactions completed at points of sale designated to accept the digital yuan.

As we reported, the first test in Shenzhen saw over $1.3 million worth of digital yuan disbursed to over 47,000 consumers in the Luohu district during the week-long trial. According to the report by PBoC, over 2 million people applied to the first lottery, with a total of 50,000 red envelopes, for a chance to win 200 digital yuan.

According to the post, 1.8 million residents applied for the ‘red envelopes’ in the latest lottery, with 95,628 winners receiving the digital yuan in their wallets. A total of 139,794 transactions were made during the 10-day trial period, totaling $2.8 million spent by the residents. Residents deposited a further 1.51 million digital yuan (approx. $232,000) to their DC/EP wallets during the trial period.

In November, local reports from China confirmed that the PBoC worked on launching trials and piloting the digital yuan project to other provinces starting with Suzhou in Xiangcheng. Suzhou trials will be carried out similarly to Shenzhen ‘red envelope’ trials but are expected to feature offline payment channels and a smartphone touch feature.

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