Upgrades have been made to China’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), also known as the digital yuan or eCNY, adding smart contract functionality and a number of recently unveiled use cases, as reported by Cointelegraph.
Cointelegraph further noted that as per a recent report by regional cryptocurrency media outlet 8btc, the Meituan app, a Chinese app that offers retail and food delivery services, has started using smart contracts.
A smart contract is triggered when a Meituan user places an order and pays with their e-CNY wallet. It then searches for keywords and the items they have purchased in their order. A user enters a drawing to win a portion of a prize if they purchase something from the list of keywords for the day.
Cointelegraph noted that in December 2022, a former employee of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), the nation’s central bank, even made the extraordinary admission that the digital yuan’s “usage has been low” and “highly inactive” and that “the results are not ideal.”
For the first time, the PBOC included e-CNY in its currency circulation reports on January 10, revealing that by the end of 2022, the CBDC would account for about 0.13% of the 10.47 trillion yuan ($1.54 trillion) in circulation, Cointelegraph further noted.
(With insights from Cointelegraph)