Hainan authorities to test digital yuan

From 12 to 25 April, the authorities of the Chinese province of Hainan will test the digital yuan (DCEP) in the city of Sanya. This was reported by the 21st Century Business Herald.

The experiment is being conducted by the local branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, in cooperation with the Haikou Municipal District branch of the People’s Bank and local authorities.

Local residents, government workers and employees of enterprises participate in the project. According to the media, the aim of the experiment is to demonstrate the security and convenience of the digital currency and to raise awareness of it among the public.

In October 2020 mass testing of the digital yuan took place in Shenzhen. During the second test, residents completed nearly 140,000 transactions totaling 18.22 million yuan (~$2.8 million). In January 2021, the third phase of trials began.

An experiment distributing 100,000 “red envelopes” also took place in Suzhou. Beijing and Shanghai announced plans to support the testing of the DCEP.

Earlier in February 2021, the Agricultural Bank of China branch in the megacity of the future Xiong’an in Hebei province developed a hardware wallet for the digital yuan.