Selected Shenzhen residents will receive lottery ‘red envelopes’ with digital yuan. The city of Shenzhen is offering its citizens the opportunity to register to participate in a municipal lottery as of last week’s Friday as a New Year’s offering, with registrations closing this morning, Monday, at 10 am local time.
Those interested were able to sign up for the lottery using the iShenzhen event registration platform, according to an announcement by the Shenzhen government. The lottery is, strictly speaking, not a competition but is being settled on a first-come, first-serve basis.
In total, the town plans to send lottery winners 100,000 “red envelopes”, each containing 200 digital yuan (approximately $31). The combined value of the envelopes is valued at approximately $3 million, and recipients will spend their gifted currency on 10,000 sponsored merchants. Only for 10 days will the envelopes be active, after which the currency will expire.
To spend their currency, lottery winners will need to download and install an app and open a personal digital wallet, having earlier provided their resident ID cards and mobile phone numbers for registration.
[image: Hendrik Will]
