Suzhou to launch digital yuan ‘red envelope’ trial for Double 12 event

Tied in with a national shopping event, the trial will add “offline” and “touch” functionality.

The Chinese city of Suzhou will be the second to roll out a “red envelope” trial for the forthcoming digital yuan, according to a report in local media outlet The Paper.

Following the successful pilot scheme run in the city of Shenzhen last month, insiders say that the Suzhou district of Xiangcheng will be launching the giveaway to coincide with the country’s Double 12 shopping event on Dec. 12.

Many businesses in the district have reportedly already installed near-field communication QR codes in anticipation of the trial.

The previous Shenzhen trial saw a total of 10 million digital yuan distributed to 50,000 winners of red envelopes in a lottery format draw.

As Cointelegraph reported, within two weeks of the envelopes being distributed, 95% of the winners had spent their 200 digital yuan prize, with some participants going on to buy more.

However, participants in the Shenzhen scheme were not able to use the “offline” and “touch” functions of the digital wallets, known as panda wallets.

The Suzhou rollout will include this functionality, allowing users to transfer money simply by touching mobile devices, even when neither are connected to a network.

Double 12 is a shopping festival run by e-commerce giant Alibaba, the month after its much-hyped “Singles Day” event. It focuses a great deal of attention on offline spending and smaller brands.

There is also currently a closed beta trial of the digital yuan in the city of Chengdu, and the 2022 Winter Olympics venue will reportedly also take part in a closed pilot scheme.