More than 2.6 million of Shenzhen’s 18 million residents signed up for the Chinese city’s upcoming airdrop of 30 million digital yuan, or e-CNY.
Digital yuan is the Chinese government’s take on a central bank digital currency and, although still in its pilot stage, has seen millions of transactions throughout the country already.
Users who received the airdrops through a randomised lottery selection could then spend the e-CNY vouchers at various participating merchants’ terminals on Meituan, one of China’s leading e-commerce platforms. The event, which ran from May 30 to June 19, attracted more than 67,000 merchants.
Earlier this week, the City of Fuzhou announced a similar upcoming airdrop of 20 million e-CNY for local residents. Any user who passes through Know Your Customer (KYC) identification and has a local phone number can log in to the “e-Fuzhou” city app and enter a lottery draw for 100 e-CNY per airdrop.
More than 9,000 merchants throughout Fuzhou will accept the dispensed digital yuan.
China has been picking up its CBDC efforts ever since it declared all crypto-related activity illegal at the end of 2021.
Plans to expand the current number of e-CNY test sites from 11 up to 23 are already underway. Furthermore, in the City of Tianjin it is already possible to take out a loan or pay for public transport using e-CNY.
In the past three months since the digital yuan was introduced to Tianjin, local residents have made approximately 1.85 million e-CNY transactions, making up 290 million CNY across almost 40,000 vendors.