Chinese online retailer JD.com объявил that since January it has been paying some employees their salaries in the digital yuan (DCEP) and using it in interbank and commercial settlements.
In December 2020, as part of the DCEP testing, users оплатили почти 20 000 покупок на JD.com within the first 24 hours after the start of the experiment in Suzhou.
In October 2020, the Shenzhen authorities провели первое распределение of the national digital currency among residents. In January 2021, in Shenzhen повторили массовый эксперимент по использованию DCEP.
The testing of the digital yuan also took place in the city Чэнду and in the province Хайнань. Beijing and Shanghai announced plans to support experiments with the DCEP.
On April 26, Reuters reported that six of China’s largest banks are promoting the digital yuan as a superior competitor to the popular payment systems WeChat Pay and Alipay.
In April, Wang Xin, head of the People’s Bank of China’s research division, said that interest in the DCEP is partly based on the rise in Bitcoin’s price.
Earlier, the Chinese central bank ruled out the emergence of fully anonymous national digital currencies.
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