TL;DR Breakdown
- $3 million digital yuan to be given to Shangai residents
- Air drop aimed at improving CBDC adoption
- Africa joins race for CBDC
Shangai has announced that it would be airdropping digital yuan worth $3 million to 350,000 consumers in a lottery-style system. The airdrop is to grow the digital yuan further.
The municipality, in its announcement, said that the airdrop would see over 19.25 million yuan distributed to lottery winners. The winners are going to be handed 350,000 digital red envelopes, with each wallet containing 55 digital yuan.
People in the municipality are to signup for the lottery through the official WeChat account of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Shanghai branch as well as the Bank of Communications Shanghai branch between June 5 and 6.
Shangai is announcing their airdrop days after Beijing had announced it would also be distributing over $6.2 million worth of digital yuan to its residents.
Beijing will offer 200,000 digital red envelopes, each containing 200 yuan.
Mass adoption, aim behind incessant Digital yuan airdrop
The Asian country has continued to push its digital currency aggressively, majorly to enhance mass adoption.
The Digital yuan is supposed to become a new means of exchange within China and eventually being used at the upcoming 2022 Winter Olympics.
Reportedly, the Deputy Governor of the People’s Bank of China, Li Bo, had previously stated that the mass spread of the digital currency was aimed at replacing the US dollar or any other international currency.
African countries get in line for CBDC
African countries have joined many others globally in the race to launch their country CBDC.
Ghana, a West African country, is the latest to announce plans to begin developing their own CBDC, as reported by Cryptopolitan on Thursday.
Ernest Addison, governor of the country’s central bank, revealed at a press conference that the BoG was in the advanced stages of creating a CBDC.
Other African countries like Kenya and South Africa have also taken active steps to float their CBDC, while giant of Africa Nigeria is passively murmuring about working on a digital naira.
