95% of winners in China’s CBDC lottery spent digital yuan prizes

The vast majority of China’s $1.5 million digital yuan lottery winners have received and spent their “red packets” of digital yuan.

As of Oct. 18, a total of 47,573 out of 50,000 lottery winners in China have received their prizes, Shenzhen authorities officially announced on Sunday.

According to the announcement, the winners conducted a total of 62,788 transactions accounting for 8.8 million yuan ($1.3 million). This amount represents about 88% of the total 10 million yuan ($1.5 million) that was to be distributed in the giveaway pilot in Shenzhen.

Some winners have not only spent their “red packets,” but also topped up their wallets, having purchased an additional 901,000 yuan ($134,000).

Shenzhen launched a pilot program to promote the digital yuan with a public giveaway on Oct. 9. Lottery organizers will take back the unused amount of the digital yuan packets if winners do not spend it by Oct. 18.

As previously reported, a total of 2 million people applied to participate in Shenzhen’s digital yuan giveaway program as of Oct. 12.

China’s central bank digital currency — the digital yuan — began testing in April 2020. Pilots were subsequently expanded to nine cities including Shenzhen, Guangzhou, as well as Hong Kong and Macau.