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The total value of transactions using China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital yuan, reached 34.5 billion yuan ($5 billion) by the end of the June, the People’s Bank of China said on Friday.
- The PBOC also said for the first time that the CBDC will be compatible with smart contracts.
- The total number of transactions was 70.75 million, spread among almost 21 million personal wallets and 3.5 million enterprise wallets, the central bank said in a white paper.
- Digital yuan wallets will be tiered based on the amount of personal information provided, the central bank said. The tiers will determine transaction and balance limits.
- Users will be able to open "least-privileged" wallets by default, without providing any personal information, and later upgrade them to unlock features.
- The central bank also offered details on the trials planned for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
- Unmanned vans, self-service vending machines, unmanned supermarkets, payment gloves, payment badges, Winter Olympics payment clothing, and other wearable devices will be deployed at the global sports event, it said.
- The paper assessed that the basic design of the digital yuan is in place. Authorities will continue existing trials across the country, and launch new ones.
- Trials for the digital yuan started over a year ago and were initially restricted to four cities – Chengdu, Shenzhen, Suzhou and Xiong'an – and were accessible only to whitelisted individuals.
- They later opened to the public through lotteries in the four cities, and expanded to more cities, including Shanghai and Beijing.
- There is no timetable for the launch of the central bank digital currency.
Read more: How China’s Digital Yuan Could Go Global
