The government of the Chinese city of Suzhou has published a blog post in which it has announced the release of 20 million yuan in digital currency.
From 5 to 6 December, any of the 10.7 million inhabitants of the city can register for participation in the lottery, and the winners will receive “red packets” for an amount of 200 yuan (or about $30).
A few months before, there was an “airdrop” in the city of Shenzhen for an amount of $1.5 million, during which 50,000 residents received a cryptocurrency for the purchase of goods in the city of Zero For the time being, the testing project of the digital yuan will be focusing on Chengdu, Suzhou, Shenzhen and Xiong’an.
In time, the government plans to expand the geography of the experiments.
The administration of Suzhou will announce the winner of the lottery on December 11, the day before the big shopping event in China, like Black Friday in the USA.
The festival of online shopping Double 12 is conducted once a year. Last year only Alibaba raised $38 billion in 24 hours.
Unlike the larger event Double 11 in November, Double 12 is based on small internet shops in China. Winners of the Suzhou airdrop will be able to spend their digital yuan to 27 merchants, including in shops on the JD.com e-commerce platform.
Some winners will also test the function of autonomous payments with new cryptocurrency wallet methods.
