Chinese authorities expect the upcoming pilot project to become the biggest for new cryptocurrency and will resemble the earlier testing in Shenzhen
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) is getting ready for one of the major testing of digital yuan. The Beijing Local Financial Supervision and Administration along with the Tongzhou District government have taken part in the conference, discussing the financial industry development in the capital. One of the 102 initiatives concerns a digital yuan as part of the promoting innovations, according to 8btc with reference to local media sources.
Beijing plans a comprehensive citywide pilot project involving the virtual national currency. It will be similar to earlier Shenzhen tests in October, when 50,000 consumers were selected in a lottery and handed over 200 yuan ($29.75) in digital “red envelops” to be spent over the course of a week. As a result, users spent over $1.3 mln, impressing many analysts.
At the Hong Kong Fintech Week conference on Monday, Yi Gang, governor of the People’s Bank of China, said a pilot program on the rollout of a digital currency in four cities has been smooth. The total of 4 million transactions have been processed, worth over 2 billion yuan ($299 million) in the digital currency so far. Yet, protecting consumers’ private data is a challenge and the authorities have to establish a legal base before proceeding at full speed.